Day 68: ‘Saying bye to Bri’

I DEDICATE today’s blog to my Granddad, Brian Shelbourne, who passed away this morning.

Bri, as I’ve called him since I was about ten years old (still can’t remember where that one started), was one of the main men in my life - a short but distinguished list.

As a little girl your Granddad, much like your Dad, is one of the strongest, cleverest, funniest and most wise people you’ll ever come across. They can literally do anything..they fix things, they can lift things bigger than you, they used to skip with anacondas in the jungle, they build sandcastles to rival any other, they spoil you rotten and offer the best of cuddles.

With age of course, came the knowledge that perhaps Bri wasn’t the strongest man in the world, in fact he’d got a really bad back, and perhaps his stories about skipping with anacondas may in fact be more fiction than fact, but it didn’t stop us doting on him.

In recent years, thanks to the rather sudden onset of dementia, Granddad’s mind has become less and less his own. He’s not always had the right answer to your question, and some days he’s been in a completely different world. 

It’s amazing how you get used to someone behaving so differently, and how easy it is to forget what they were like before. But there’s always been inklings, little snippets of the man you remember, however briefly. Perhaps a little roll of the eyes when one of us says something he thinks is daft, or a cheeky smile cause he knows he’s said something he might get some grief for. That’s enough, it’s all I’ve ever needed.

The latter stages of dementia offer very little comfort to the sufferer or their loved ones. It’s a shit of a disease (sorry Mum, when it comes to this one, it’s not editable!) 

None of us would ever choose to have lost Bri this morning, but we also know that given the choice, he would never have chosen the life he would have had, had he gone on.

Although the past few years are fresh in my memory, it’s the moments before I remember most fondly. 

His favourite country and western singer, Roger Whitaker’s cassettes in his car, that after years of listening to them, I knew off by heart. 

His love for old Westerns, particularly anything with John Wayne in it. 

The rocking dog he made for me by hand, because I loved dogs so much and wouldn’t want a rocking horse. 

The ice cream milkshakes he’d make for me and Katy every Saturday night when we stayed over. How patient he was when I decided he should stop smoking cigarettes and move on to a pipe - particularly when I threw all his cigarettes in a bin, while on holiday in Cornwall! 

The fact that he was on first name terms with the staff at every cafe, garden centre and tea rooms within a 20 mile radius. 

To name just a few.

Night Bri, sleep well.