My Grandmother

My maternal grandmother died in January 2008 aged 88. I had a very good relationship with her, especially in her last few years.

I would regularly go and visit her on a Saturday and have a game of scrabble with her. In fact from about September 2006 till the beginning of January 2008 I saw her almost every Saturday.

I've also had the tendency to want to repeat the same conversations, and with my Grandmother that worked so well, because her memory started to go in her last few years, so my repeating the same questions to her helped her memory.

Here's a typcially conversation we had. I would go through a list of her friends, who were her fellow 80 and 90 somethings, many of whom she went to church with.

Christopher   "How's Doris Dearsley doing?"
Grandma       "Oh she's fine"
Christopher   "How's Dr Drown doing?"
Grandma       "She's very good"
Christopher   "Because she sometimes has Doris Dearsley round for dinner"
Grandma       "Yes"
Christopher   "How's Anthea doing?"

and so on. Somehow I found these extremely elderly ladies very interesting. I think it was because they were extremely elderly, infact Dr Drown recently turned 100 and is in a care home (I know this as I remember people's birthdates well and I still have contacts who tell me she's still around.) How I got interested I don't know, as it was my grandmother who first mentioned these people to me. Some of them I'd met, some I hadn't. But I think my Saturday's with grandma really helped me to show an interest in other people, and has been benefical to my social skills today.