Eighth Dimension: #69 Grandad

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My grandad died today. Two Novembers ago he was diagnosed with leukeamia, a year after that it got to his lungs. By February this year is got into the bone. By the beginning of March it got into his brain. Grandads' mother had dementia when she died and he always said he never wanted to lose himself like she did before he died, when I heard it had got into his brain I was terrified his worst fears were going to come true. He was able to keep hold of himself though, he was quiet a lot of the time and so confused, but he was still Grandad.

Grandad was loving and caring, we weren't related by blood - he married Grandma before I was even born. I grew up closer to him than most of my other family. He was always intrigued by what I would play and do on my computer. I would show him Baldurs' Gate and even showed him some of the things I changed in it, he watched Lord of the Rings with me and kept up with the story despite falling asleep several times. I used to stay round my grandparents once a week for a year or so and he would always have some jokes printed off from emails at work to show me and a new book or film to watch with me, he would always show an interest in whatever I was interested in - he was always proud with my achievments but never showed any disappointment in anything I did, he didn't even bat an eyelid when he knew I wasn't Christian, he said he knew I was good and I knew what was best for me to believe.

He was in the merchant navy for a long time, and I think that was partly why he was so restless - he always had to be doing something - even if it was going round the garden painting all the statues white (again) to protect them from weathering. One day he told Grandma he would build her a pond in the garden so she could have some fish and something to sit next to. It ended up being deep enough to hide my cousins in, had an island in the middle with a bench, a shallow area for goldfish and egg laying, two waterfalls, an underground pump that was larger than the shed and a bog garden next to it to ensure that the water drained correctly. With the amount of earth moved he also built a three tiered rockery that was about four and a half feet tall. Grandma was most pleased with it because some ducks started visiting every day, she loves ducks and it was big enough for them to be rather comfortable in! They had several years of generations of goldfish and koi in that pond as well as two sturgeon. All because one day he wanted to build Grandma a pond.

Grandad was so important in the family. All the grandchildren loved him, all of his step-children loved him, he would always make an incredible Christmas for everybody and was so full of life - It's painful thinking about it all.