h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today, Tuesday, March 11th... Plan: Get ready for work, Work, Come home, Laze around on the internet, Pack bags.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 12th... Plan: Travel up to Leicester, to stay with a friend of the family so I'll be there for Tomorrow...

Then... Thursday, March 13th... Plan: Attend the funeral of one of the strongest, most independant women I've ever met, and probably will ever meet. My Nana, everyones Nana. No one, not even her own children, called her Peg, and I don't think I've even heard anyone (except my mum, who told me) call her by her full name. Even to her older brother, she was Nana.

And in two days time I've got to go to a funeral where they will bury her six foot under. Where a priest will thank 'God' for her life, one which she spent 35 years of alone, where I'll have to stand, and listen to a man bash on about how 'the Good Lord' gave her to us, and how she is now in a better place, as if being in a one and a half foot by five and a half foot box, buried six feet under the earth is a better place than her house. A modest house, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a toilet you couldn't swing a cat in... but it was always nice, always clean. It amazed me how she kept it so clean, with 5 grandchildren between the ages of 3 and 13, who could trash a room just by looking at it.

Such a strong woman, if asked about a problem she might be having she'd give you a look which clearly, and forcefuly said 'What problem? I don't have any problems! Nope, no problems here! And I certainly don't want or need any help with any hypothetical problems which may, or may not have happened, be happening, or are yet to happen'. As if accepting help, charity, would make her explode.

Almost two months ago I went back home and we visited her. I was horrified to find a woman who had to have zips on her shoes because she couldn't even manage velcro, who couldn't remember how to make tea, who had to shuffle, because she was scared to raise her foot incase she fell, again. Sure I'd been warned, I'd been told she had a tumour. I'd been told it was about the size of a ping pong ball, told it was positioned in her head, on her brain, positioned so as to be totally inoperable, and I'd also been told she wasn't having any kind of treatment because it wouldn't help, wouldn't stop the inevitable. But no one had told me she looked so frail, weak, old. I know she was old, but she'd never looked it. Sure her face was a road map of cares, and her hair had been gray as long as I can remember, but she never looked old. It was all I could do to smile, to nod, to accept my hug without cringing away. It sounds terrible, I feel terrible, the last time I saw my Nana, the last time I would see my Nana, I didn't even want to hug her... two months tops she had to live, and I didn't even want to give her a hug. I wanted to run away, get away from this pale shadow of the lady, who in my mind, will always be strong, self sufficient, independant... able to make tea, able to tie her shoe laces, who didn't have to leave all the doors open in case she forgot how to open them.

I was phoned when she was taken into hospital. I was phoned when they put her on the DNR list. I was phoned when they eventually made the decision to turn off the machine which was helping her breath, told they'd said she would have two hours, max, before her lungs failed and she died. I wasn't phoned again untill 4 days later. She'd stayed alive 48 times longer than they said she would.

That was all last week.

Today I have work in an hour.

In two days time we bury her.

For now I sit, in my comfey chair, watching the time tick by as I write this and remember with a smile (and a tear) everyones Nana.