Sadly, I lost my beautiful, loving grandmother not long ago. As you would have been aware, or may not have been, we were extremely close. My life’s journey has been a constant with her by my side. So when her health began to decline within a matter of days, after five months or so after the cancer diagnoses, I resigned myself to a cold place, a place where I had to put my emotions to the side, bury them, lock them away so I could effectively nurse her through however long we had left together. That also meant that any and all pursuits had to become secondary. She was and would be my first priority.

The night before, I drew her picture in the record book that I kept, as she fell into a long and pain-free sleep, after days of fear and fitfulness, she was dosed up by the local district nurses. I had watched her skin change colour, her breathing become laboured. I agonised as she became nil by mouth (so she wouldn’t suffocate as the food would not go down) I prayed for her. Then went to sleep with my head against the adjoining wall, and awoke with a start… the moment that she had stopped breathing.

I held her hand, stroked her cheek. Then called my mother. She was 89 years old. She would have been 90 this year.

Since that day, not a day has gone by where she is not in my thoughts – we were eachothers’ company for a very long time. Since I was a kid. We have always been together. Best-friends, sisters, mothers.

My nan was / is my hero. Always will be.