The Authentic Eclectic
When You Know What You Wish You Could Never Know
When Did This Happen For You?
Mum said “Don’t let her lie down, don’t let her lie down!” her voice unnaturally raw and strained. I knew enough to know that my mum was really sad and said “It’ll be ok mummy,” and held her hand in the only comfort I could give.
She was a fragile bird of a woman, my mother’s mother. They lifted her brittle shell carefully onto the stretcher, then the ambulance men gently arranged her on the clean canvas. “Don’t lie her down,” my mother sobbed. “We have to missus, we have to,” he soothed.
My mother was sure that as soon as her mother lay down that would be the end, she would stop trying to hold on. The last time I saw my Granny Jack she was being taken away on a stretcher. I think she was in her mid 60s.
My mother was not one for tears, but she wept. I didn’t see her tears for many years after that, and then rarely.
I wanted to go to the funeral but I was too young, young enough to keep pestering, but still be refused.
My mum wore a hat with a black veil. Mrs Gilmour and I stood on the balcony on the 9th floor, looking down at the dark river and the dark car that came for my mother.
This memoir inspired by this piece by the incredibly talented writer, Auden Wright.
Alison Tennent, Queensland, Australia, November 2021 Copyright Alison Tennent 2021, all rights reserved. Scottish by birth, upbringing and bloodline, Australian by citizenship. If you’re reading this anywhere but The Garrulous Glaswegian or Medium, this work may have been plagiarized.
