Keep moving
My grandmother was a very feisty woman. At 92 she was just as full of life as the youngest in the family and there was nothing we did that she couldn’t and didn’t do. And that’s exactly what she was doing last winter when she was ice-skating around the pond trying to catch Bethan (who at 11 is rather fast) when she slipped and broke her leg, dropping with a thud to the ice and briefly losing consciousness. Now, my grandmother had never been sick for a single day in her life, not as much as a runny nose or a bad tummy, not even once. She was regarded as something of an oddity by the local medical fraternity who was always ‘offering” to run a battery of tests of on her in the interests of medical science they said. Gran told them to bugger off because she didn’t need them t run a whole load of tests to find out what was right with her! She always said her secret was simple, just keep moving and never stop. And that’s how she broke her leg, the first time anyone of us had ever seen her come to a complete stop. Of course she wasn’t at all happy about being carried off the ice and made sure that we all knew exactly how she felt. She demanded we put her down so that she could keep moving but eventually she let us get her into the car.
After a few arguments, Gran seemed to think she could just let her leg heal on its own, we got her to the casualty department of our local hospital. We pushed her in a wheelchair and a pretty red haired young nurse came moving determinedly towards Gran clucking in sympathy and then reaching out to comfortingly smooth Gran’s hair. Gran glared at her in no uncertain terms and I closed my eyes for the next bit as I knew what was coming. (Gran did not appreciate being patted or patronized, she’d been the first Irish woman to join the space programme and had raised 12 kids, so being treated like a half-wit because she was old was really a bit more than she could stomach.) Gran slammed her left foot (still in ice-skate) down onto the nurse’s Dr Scholl’s. She hopped away screeching and swearing on one foot and sent back in her place an enormous male nurse with a Caribbean accent and a big smile that Gran seemed to like rather a lot ( especially when he lifted her in both arms and swung her around the room).I guess he understood that she wanted to keep moving.
Once her plaster cast was almost dry we bundled her into a wheel chair and pushed her to the car. Once the car stopped moving we helped her inside and she let me make her a fire and some tea and toast and settle her in bed for the night. It was strange to see my little old Gran looking so tired and fragile and even stranger to see not moving for once. Before I left she told me to sit next to her on the bed and she gave me a startlingly strong hug for such a small and injured person and I held her hand for a good while before she told me to get moving and get myself on home before it was entirely dark outside.
Gran didn’t wake up the next morning. I guess when she realized that she wouldn’t be a able to keep moving anymore she diced it was time to be moving on.
