Since early 2012 I have a been the custodian of a treasure chest. I knew it was a treasure chest because it was beautiful and I had originally had to dig it up from a mysterious place to which their was no map.
In 2011 we knew my grandmother was dying. She was old, she was frail, she no longer spoke or communicated in any way other than with a glare or a glance or the squeeze of a hand... And even then, these were open to wildly different interpretation.
Mrs Agnes Patricia Boote, widow of Alexander John Watson Boote. She was the mother of four children... Iain Alexander, Margaret Jennifer, Barbara Joan and Malcolm Graham. Married the same year as the current Queen Elizabeth II of England and her Prince Consort the Duke of Edinburgh. She had been a dedicated mother and grandmother.
Her children however were not always the best at communication. In fact, I think that the only time they had a been together in the same room, before the four of them took turns to sit with their mother as she slipped from this life, was the funeral of their father, my grandfather in 2002.
In the end "Mothers" death was peaceful and she was to be buried after a simple funeral and at my aunts insistence with the love spoon a relative had carved depicting her four children and three grand children in the caged peas which my mother would have much rather she had been able to keep... My aunt had been taken ill suddenly the week of the funeral and was in hospital unable to attend. But since no one had got much sleep for the weeks before hand we all assumed that she was just under the weather and would recover. Alas history teaches us to make no assumptions.
Barbara Joan Boote passed away just days after her own mother's funeral in the a critical care unit specialising in the aftercare of people who have had brain injuries. She had without any trauma suffered from a hemorrhage caused by a previously undetected anurism. Like her parents her illness and untimely death was ultimately caused a stroke.
I do not feel I really knew much about her personally until she was gone even though she had been a constant if distant presence in my childhood... I certainly had no idea how much alike we were until people who knew her well who I only met at her funeral and memorial would catch me doing something which they recognised as of her... I miss her deeply, but ironically because her death made me realise how much I had already missed spending time with her. And especially now as in a few weeks time I will be married, and she won't be there.
I already have one precious treasure of hers, my engagment ring is a perfect fit for my hand as the size and shape of our hands is something we shared... We also both liked to write... In the 1980s before the advent of the Internet she would type up her letters and she wrote to her close friend Jane amazing, and often quite hysterically observed, tales of Christmases with the Boote family and the baby twins her sister had... We found some copies of her letters, in her flat when we cleared it after her death.
Some other things she and I also shared were: a tendency to hoarding; obsessive collecting; a flair for DIY and designing and building our own furniture; a love of floral fabrics; buying reduced hosiery; a belief that we should have enough crockery to have as many of our friends to our homes as would fit at the drop of a hat; a love of real pearls; the natural ability to excel at piano playing (but no desire to practise); a love for London (which found her living in Putney, but me being content to hop on the train from the West Midlands!); Ikea (including coming home with the maximum amount of furniture whether that's Barbara's version of one woman on a bus or my unpacking the frame to a sofa bed in the car park in freezing pouring rain to squeeze into my Suzuki Alto) and many other hundreds of things besides.
There were of course ways in which our lives had naturally taken different paths... I don't really drink... She really enjoyed her red wine and I have never smoked (but I love the smell of cigarettes... Which is part of the reason I never tried.)
Sadly though it was obvious to us all, when we had to clear up her one bed London flat to sell, that periods of depression and anxiety had written there way into the story of her own life as they have mine. The flat was crammed with stuff and was so messy you could barely see the treasures... Now I know that I am still trying to work my way clear to not remaining in the position I know my aunt was in of living with every bill from 1989 filed carefully but not able to walk from one room to the next without tredding on something important. It makes me sad that she didn't have the haven she so desperately needed.
That said I am only really describing the owner of the treasure in the smallest of ways and to give those reading these words an insight into why this treasure is so important to me. It is the affinity I feel for the owner of this magical box that makes me feel better when I look at everything which is contained within. Because in exploring it I find out somethings about someone whom I love who I can no longer answer my questions.
END OF PART ONE TO BE CONTINUED...
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