Thicker Than Water (part 2)

I didn't mean to leave things on a cliff-hanger last time. What a silly sausage.

At the hospital the atmosphere was surprisingly cheerful - my dad was playing the clown and keeping everyone giggling despite the stress of the situation and the seriousness of my Grandad's condition. I spent a few hours there that first night, then back the next day. Amazingly, after being written off by the medical staff as being on his way out, my Grandad (who I may have mentioned, is a tough old bird), after two days of being on nothing - no medication, no liquids - started to come to.

He started to open his eyes - unseeingly at first and then with more and more awareness. By the end of that second day he was nodding weakly at various questions put to him (from my dad: "Dad! They're picking on me again. Shall I clip them round the ear?" Grandad: *shakes head wearily*) and rasping through his voiceless throat that he wanted a cup of tea.

He was still out of it most of the time, but it made everyone sit up and take notice and got him put back on the morphine. I left midway through the third day to head back to London and work. I was under no illusions that he was about to make a miraculous recovery - he was eighty-five and had been battling with throat cancer for a long while. I kissed him goodbye on his forehead, and I think I tickled his face with my hair and told him that I'd see him soon. I went back to London.

I couldn't stop thinking about how dedicated and fantastic my family - his family - were being. Despite the fact that some of them weren't speaking to each other, or even to him, over that week all of the sisters, and their children came from around the country to see him, to spend time with him. My dad and sisters had coordinated an effort over the week to ensure that Grandad was never alone, he always had some of his family around him. Their duty to their father was unfaltering and incredibly moving. It's one of the many many reasons I am completely in awe of my own dad.

On Saturday, Grandad died at around eight in the evening. There were giggles and bad taste jokes about waking the dead and also about fish and chips and the nurses probably were wondering what was going on.

I am ok. Everyone is holding up pretty well - it's just a bit of bad luck that the funeral is going to be on my birthday.