My bed......

A place to rest my head, a place I love dearly......

Hi Substack family,

**This is the longest piece I’ve ever written here in my substack home and even though I know long pieces can be off putting I really hope you might read this or best still listen to it through the audio recorded above. I’ve added a few audio extra’s in which you will hear as you listen that can’t be captured through the text. If you are going for a walk today, this is the best mini podcast to bring with you…..I hope to start adding these recordings to my podcast ‘Living and Laughing with Lou’ which can be listened to on Spotify at the moment but for now these specific ones are made for my Substack family only. Hope you enjoy and please feel free to share or comment. I really appreciate your support as when I write, I write for YOU! Lou x

PS. I’ve been so lucky to have gained a lot of new substack family members recently and usually my letters are ‘shorter’ haha ;) but this week is an exception as my heart was really feeling very lonely for Gran and all I could do to cope with my tears was to write…..I feel in the future these words will make it into another book but for now I want you to have them & I hope somewhere within them they give you a sense that I know how you feel (life is so hard on so many & nobody has it easy)…….We are all on this road together…And a reminder that also light and love always win out xx

I love you and I will never not miss you but thank god for all the love & memories x

As I type this in my notes app on my phone, I’m lying in my bed under my duvet as snug as a bug……and what am I thinking about? I know lots of answers are popping into your head but I don’t think many of you will guess my thoughts or maybe you will. I’m thinking to myself how I love being in my bed. It’s like a refuge from the world. The minute I slide into bed at night I feel safe and free from my troubles. The world seems far away and all that matters to me in this moment is the warmth of my electric blanket (yes we need them in Ireland —bbbbbrrr it’s wintery cold) and the cosiness of my soft pillow under my head and the blanket covering my body.

While I stayed with Gran, my sleeping arrangements were far from ideal for comfort but they were very effective for the care role I was in. Every night I would go up to the parlour and drag (yep I dragged) down my fold up bed to the kitchen. Four trips up and down to the parlour from the initial carry down followed, which saw me dragging (I did a lot of dragging) my pillows, my duvet, my blanket and my other blanket and then a final carry down of my backpack with all my night-time bits and bobs in them. This ritual took place every night after my mam left and the carer who helped put Gran to bed. Her name was Karen during the weekdays and it was usual Vicky at the weekends. Both these girls I loved and still love dearly with my heart. They were witness to my bedtime routine as they attended to Gran as I was taking battle with my bed…..

I used to have it facing Gran’s door with the head of the bed under the tele. When I look back at my bed situation in those days, initially I was very content with it in the sense that it worked to allow me to be close to Gran and that element of my thinking never changed. There were upstairs bedrooms that hadn’t been lived in for years, decades even and I knew even if I livened them up, I was too far away from Gran physically so it would never have worked, not for my conscience. I wanted to be close to her at all times so there began my story with my fold up bed on the other side of her thin bedroom wall.

We had a love hate relationship really…Me and the fold up bed….I knew it was allowing me live out my promise to Gran but within it, it wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t even comfortable. It was tough if I’m honest now. I couldn’t admit that out loud back then because in admitting that in myself, I was afraid I would want to admit every fibre of my feelings where doubt, loneliness and even sadness would flood me like a tsunami…and if that happened I might never be able to stop my feelings from overtaking me and I was afraid that would I would want to give up…..

I was very unfortunate that the bed I had just as the pandemic hit became a big problem. Didn’t the little screws that were holding the bed together fall out in all my dragging of it up and down. See the fold up bed was very much neglected. Some nights I would fight with it and with the tiny space in which I lay it down, I have to be honest I wasn’t always smiling from ear to ear as I assembled it. No wonder the screws fell out, often I would be so exhausted that once it fell to the floor, I would be happy it looked like a bed and I too would fall to the floor and take my space upon it…..I hadn’t noticed that the screws had loosened over time and then disengaged so just as the pandemic hit my bed was no longer able to stand up in that without that one screw the whole bed structure became untenable and unstable. It was no longer a bed. Just a piece of iron that looked a funny shape…less the funny aspect of course…I was not laughing but at the same stage I was ok. I was left with no option on March 10th but to accept the fold up structure was no longer a goer and to start placing the mattress on the floor. I slept like that for five months. It’s funny because when I think of that moment, I would never be able to survive like that now, but in that instance, with Granny’s beautiful little face across from my eye level, I never even thought twice about it. Instead every night rather that pulling out the big fold up bed, I dragged down my mattress and my mattress alone. I guess in hindsight it was one less thing to drag down…As they say there is always a silver lining right?!

That fateful mattress…..

Looking back really stirs a lot of emotion for me. In ways a lot of these memories I have forgotten and forgotten with intention. Well I use the word forgotten but I guess you never really forget, instead I’ve put them in a box in my mind and I’ve tightly closed the lid on them. As I open these memories as I type, I feel the tears move to my eyes. It’s very hard not to get emotional about all these moments. Moments that were hard. Moments that were isolating. Moments that asked of my personal resilience to come to the fore front. Moments where I wanted to give up. Moments where I knew I couldn’t think but instead I just had to keep going. These memories are very triggering as I think about them now but I think they are important to think about now when I am far enough away to think about them and in a place of healing where I can process them, with tears of course….A lot of these memories are locked away in my mind for a reason. Not only was I sleeping on the floor, but we were in the most intense panic the world had ever been in, with covid just taking over and in looking back, I’m not even sure how I really coped. Thank god somewhere within me is a natural calm approach to life and I must have just leaned in. Leaning in is the only thing to do when you are unsure and in looking back, I’m so grateful I had enough strength built up within me to hold on, hold out and stick the story and path I had chosen. The path I had chosen with both hands even if it was hard and lonely… I knew why I was doing it and that reason never faltered, never weakened, never lessened thank god. I was doing it for my best friend.

Within these particular memories of the tough element of being a carer coming to mind, I feel the sacrifice rise to the top too and even the sadness I felt on many an occasion. Being a full time carer in a pandemic was not easy. But I do remember distinctly how many of my thoughts were very much centred around my bed. When things loosened up on the lockdown end, I searched high and low for the best type of fold up bed. I knew one aspect I was really missing and maybe you will be surprised or maybe you won’t…But it was that my next fold up bed must have a headboard…There actually is nothing worse than your pillow falling off the bed the whole time and with the tele and press at the top of bed, it helped but it was far from a real headboard. Most fold up beds don’t have them by the way so if the next time you are buying one, it is very much worth the research to find one with a headboard. See it is indeed the small things in life that make the big things…..and my god I will never ever take for granted the headboard of a bed……..

I had a small space in the kitchen for my bed & without moving Gran’s stuff, I made it as cosy as I could x

On nights when Gran was sick, my bed became moveable once again…..I would carry my mattress into her bedroom and place it on the floor alongside her bed…No room for the structure so it was back to the floor I went….Here come the tears again as the vivid memories flood my mind….

During the lockdowns thankfully Gran was very well for ‘most’ of the time. On the times she wasn’t well, it was the same lead up & the exact same sickness that always came knocking in this order when Gran would fall ill. Gran would simply get lonely. A lonely I couldn’t control or distract but instead a loneliness that would build within her…..a natural pine for her family and friends. No amount of me would ever replace all she was missing and even though I tried my best I always knew when we were heading to a episode of sickness for Gran, I could predict it. I could tell you in advance, ‘this is the night that Gran is not going to sleep’…Like Gran, her illnesses were predictable, were consistent and they always stemmed from the same place -in this instance her lonely heart. She would chat to me during the day of how she missed all her family and friends as we were locked in and even though she would always finish with a little pep talk to me with the words, “eventually this will all be over Louise and we will be all be back together. I’m going to have a party out in the back garden when that day comes”,I would agree and then would give her my encouraging pep talk in return to say, ‘just another week or two Gran and we will be back to normal I promise.” Her words the exact same every time and mine too.

Even though Gran remained cheerful I knew her heart was hurting. Of course the one factor that was against her, was the element that impressed everyone about her, represented by the seven ticking clocks in her kitchen, time & it was against her. But of course when you are 106 going on 107, even though you have been given a lot of time, Gran, like us all, wanted more of it - it’s what kept her going really. All she wanted in this moment was enough to allow her see all her immediate family and her best friends one more time.

Time meant so much to both of us x

So when she got lonely, she really felt it to her core. During the day I would recognise her loneliness and then by that night time, as I put my head on my pillow, I would hear Gran unsettled in bed. That would in turn lead to a whole night of Gran unsettled and unable to sleep, agitated and unsure of why she was awake. A chest infection would ensue and then for three to four days Gran wouldn’t be able to sleep and would fall into deep hallucinations and intense agitation. She would go from harmless hallucinations imagining her dinner being in front of her to the place flooded with water (that was horrible to watch) to imagining that she could see the sacred heart. Often speaking of people who were gone from this life then moving back to her younger years of minding her children. It was a rollercoaster and I would lie on the floor beside her bed trying to calm her, failing a lot but somewhere within my voice gran would know she was safe. In the breach of the hallucination, she would say “Louise are you there?” Unable to see me, she knew she might hear me….I would say “Yes Gran I’m here….and we’re at home.” It might only last a moment but it was enough for me to hold on. It was enough for her to hold on….

The nights of illness were not easy x

Her holy pictures became stead hold references for me to calm her and also her St. Brigid’s crosses that were on the wall… they helped a lot in the hallucination period but never could I bring her back fully until the phase of 3-4 full days of intense chest infection had passed. Then on one of these days she would just slip into a deep sleep and then remain like that for 3-4 days once again…If you were to have seen her, she looked like she was in a coma but I knew she wasn’t. For most of this sleeping period, one would actually think she was gone to the next life but I was just so relieved I hadn’t lost her but instead I knew she was catching up on much lost sleep and I could feel it in my body that she was going to be ok. Over the time, me and gran became connected like a baby and her mother. She was my baby and I was her mother. My maternal instincts took over and i could read, feel and sense Gran at all times. I could feel her chest infection forming inside her. I could feel her falling lonely. I could feel her getting better. I could feel her coming back…..It was a deeply rooted connection but it was magic in its own way…. It formed a deeply rooted love and I guess that’s is why I never gave up on her. I loved her and she loved me and even a mattress on the floor was never going to break me even though without sleep really tested me. There were so many times I was close to giving up but it was the love that kept me strong…it’s still the love that keeps me strong.

St. Brigid was a very special saint to both me and Gran x

For a lady of 106/107 years it was miraculous how she would come full circle within a week or so of this episodes of intense illness. As she slept soundly in the days after, I returned back out to the kitchen to my fold up bed once again. During these days my bed was my refuge but a different kind of refuge. For this, it was where I often cried myself to sleep feeling unsure of everything. The post reflection of the intense battle that we had again won. Won by a whisker but we had won. Also unsure of whether this was the last time we would survive. More tears. More turning in my bed to the thoughts I couldn’t share with anyone? It was just me and the seven ticking clocks that witnessed these moments. Would we win the next battle? Were these battles getting harder? See everything I thought and went through during those years, were based on one word and that word was ‘we’….even when she didn’t know where she was, it was still us against the world…Here comes the tears again….It was me and her. We became a team. We became us. It was two similar souls holding on tight to survive. Gran didn’t want me to give up on her and I didn’t want her to give up on life. We clung to each other, not physically but in a deeply spiritual way. Imagine even in her deep hallucination state of her chest infections, we still would be able to get our prayers said. She really was someone very special and I truly believe she was someone God was close to and somewhere in the middle of that I lay on my bed witnessing it all.

When you have a hand to hold, you have an awful lot in this world x

My bed…it was everything really. It was the only thing I possessed in the house and it was so integral to me being able to mind Gran so well so I will always be grateful for it…..On coming to the closing part of these words, I’ll have to finish on a story of joy because no matter the lows, the loneliness and the longing I had in my fold up bed, I will be forever grateful to it. My fold up bed, a piece of iron with a mattress on top…such a simple item…..allowed me to love, care and give all I had inside me to my best friend. I was fortunate enough to be able to offer my life to her and I will never regret a moment of our time together. I will always look up to the sky and say thank God for giving me the strength to never give up and thank you Gran for allowing me love you in your final years and partially your final days. What an honour it was… A lovely memory I hold of our bedtime ritual is one I must share to balance this piece out. Again tears will run down my face but this time it’s a special sort of memory. Every night and every morning we said our prayers together. Every morning we drank tea together. Every morning I would open the curtains and say the same thing ‘Will I open these curtains and let God’s light in Gran?” We would start there as I stood beside her at her bedside and then sit alongside her and have our morning chats.

The night time would be of similar routine. Prayers shared with someone I loved. I hadn’t said prayers since I was a child so when I moved in first and heard her muttering to herself at night I would wonder what she was saying. As the days went on, I realised what she was doing as well as saying. And then as more days passed in those early stages I approached and would join in with her. I know she loved this. I felt it from her every single time I sat down at her bedside. She had lived on her own since Bob her husband had died in 1989 and nothing but silence had filled her home in this nightly and early morning hours. It was now 2019 and all of a sudden another voice was alongside her. Thank god something inside me, stirred me to join her. To close off my modern mind to the idea that prayers & faith were no use (never is there a good thing said about faith nowadays) but instead I decided to join my Gran doing something she loved, something she believed in. Thank god for my open mind. As the days passed I realised she wouldn’t be settled in bed until we said them together. It became our thing and so did the big mug of tea in bed too. It all became our thing. Our beds were parallel to each other during the night and even though a thin wall separated us, nothing separated us. We were united. Bed by bed. Prayer by prayer. Heart by heart. Just thinking back on those times, Gran would often call out to me as we both lay awake in our beds…I knew she knew I was awake just like I knew she was awake…how? well just that feeling you get where you know someone really well and you can feel them…., “Are you ok out there Louise? Are you asleep yet?” (tears again)…I can hear her so vividly in my mind as I type this. The voice. I love the voice. It’s my favourite attribute of a person. I can hear her in my memories. I can hear her so closely as I write this. We spent such intense intimate time together I know I’ll never not hear her and for that I am forever grateful.

The last story i will share around the bed is her final day on this earth. It was like any other night. We said our prayers. We had our chats. We said goodnight to each other and I laid a kiss upon her forehead. “Good night Gran.” “Good night darling.” “Ill see you in the morning.” “Please god Louise. Please god.”. That night Gran did not sleep at all. We stayed up all night talking, praying and drinking tea. She was unsettled and even though, a night like this would signal a chest infection, somewhere inside me I knew this was different. I don’t know why but I just felt something was different. I never thought she was leaving me. I just thought gosh this is unusual. She had no pain. No aches. No troubles. Instead she was content apart from not able to settle to sleep. At 3am I texted my mam. Mam like the angel she is responded and said she would tip up to me. Mam arrived and Gran was like ‘Olive what are you doing here? I heard you were game for a chat so I said I’d join ye. Mam and gran started to chat…and then they prayed. We all prayed. We all chatted. At 4.45am Gran was still awake but was more relaxed. I heard the bird singing and I could see the sun beginning to rise. I said to mam “You go home, it’s morning time.” Mam headed out and I thought that’s it now, we are nearly at morning, Gran might nod off to sleep.

The sun rising at Gran’s home x

I walked mam out and as I glanced into the room I saw Gran relaxed. I knew she must be tired so I started to settled my bed for an opportunity to sleep. When I had those jobs done, I returned back into the room. Gran was awake. We chatted a bit more. I told her the birds were getting up out of their beds soon. At that I could see Gran looking different. I don’t know what I could see, but I knew something was wrong. I text my mam to come back up. Again did I know she was dying? No I didn’t. I wish I did. Instead I just comforted her and said was everything ok. She said it was but that she felt different. I knew she felt different. I felt different too. Mam arrived soon after. Mam saw what I saw. We knew something was not right. No signs of pain. No signs of sickness. Nothing that signalled dying. Just we felt something in us. At that we asked Gran did she want a drink…she said yes and I said we best sit you up a bit in the bed.

I took her hand and as she made the move to sit up, she let go my hand….I felt it loosened. This was not her. She never let go. She never gave up. I had lost her and I knew it. I said to mam she’s gone. Mam said “no she’s not.” I said ‘Yes she is.’ I felt her leave. I felt God enter the room, I felt her letting go of my hand and taking hold of Gods. I felt it and it was all in the way she wanted it to happen. Gran’s wish when I moved in with her was that she would die in her own home, in her own bed. And I promised on that faithful day she asked me to move in, that I would do everything in my power to keep that promise for her. She wanted to die in her own bed. And I wanted what she wanted. I never wanted her to leave but my god was it special to see a woman who was here for nearly 108 years leave this world while holding my hand in her own bed special. I had kept my promise. And she had kept hers to me. We had shared our lives together. We had laid in our beds together. We lived, laughed and loved together. I miss her terribly this week. Grief is like that. but most importantly love is what heals and my heart is full of Gran and I will always, always be so grateful for the time I lived with my best friend. It’s hard adjusting to no longer being ‘we’ but I know she’s up there looking down and when I say my prayers at night and in the morning, I know she’s saying them with me. I hope you’ve got the best bed in Heaven Gran, you sure do deserve it x

I pull my blanket up and I turn over on my side. The pillow is cold but my heart is warm. You are no longer here. The tears flow down the left side of my cheek. My bed is my refuge and somewhere I will never not think of you. I have a headboard now and I no longer sleep in the kitchen. I say my prayers on my own but I know the whole of heaven is listening. I close my eyes. I can see you. I hear your lovely soft voice. My mind and heart is full of memories I treasure. I know you’re telling me to dry those tears and go live my full and happy life, a life you want for me. I start to drift off to sleep as my tears begin to dry…..My bed. A very simple item and one I will never take for granted. My sacred place away from the world and a place I can fall into your arms in a moments breathe. I think to myself “Was this all a dream or was it really our life?” It was real. And it was our life and I will never not want to close my eyes and see you. Rest easy Gran, you gave all to us on earth and now is your time to sleep in Heaven.

Goodnight Gran.

I’ll see you tomorrow please god (when my time is up and we will once again hold hands and lie in our beds together).

Our beds x

Until then, I’ll keep praying and I’ll keeping looking up.

Lou x

This was our first morning waking up together when I had just moved in….I think the smiles say it all x

If you might like reading the life story of Granny Nancy told through her own words, our first book is out now….You can order it from www.livingandlaughingwithlou.com

The name of the book is ‘Granny Nancy - Ireland’s Oldest Lady Who Lived, Loved and Laughed for 107 Years’ and I promise you, it will make you smile from start to finish - exactly what Gran did for me from the start and the end of our most treasured friendship xx

I’d love if you might share this post or comment below. It means so much to me to know what you thought of this piece and thank you so very much for your support and friendship always & for reading/listening all the way here x

I don’t need much now….A bed to lie in, a roof over my head, food in the press & those I love well and healthy…… I’ve never felt so at peace within myself since the day Gran let go of my hand…She left me with so much x