I freely admit it. I am a techno-luddite - I am okay with technology, but I''ll cling to the familiar and quail inwardly at having to deal with the new. (and it only took me two attempts to remember my password for this little corner of my netritus, so yay me, already!)

What has happened then since the last post? Well, my Nana died. This is the one who had dementia. It prompted some weird and slightly melancholy dreams (featuring her in the state of her last years), I don't know when they'll taper off. The final downhill run was when she pretty much refused to eat - she wouldn't swallow - she couldn't remember how to swallow. She started sleeping a lot (uncharacteristically), and about three weeks later she didn't wake up one morning. G'pa was with her. Sis and I were supposed to be visiting that afternoon.

First time I've seen a dead person in the flesh. Waxy looking. Her face not quite set like the stereotype that one might imagine of "looking like she was merely sleeping" - the eyelids were just slightly open, as was the mouth. I drew her portrait as my sister and I sat with her through the day. First, last, and only time. If I sound clinical, it's possibly because I don't type emotions terribly well! But I mourned for her passing, and I mourned her loss long prior to that as well - for that's the cruelty of dementia. Turns folk into little baby chicks, peeping, but not really knowing what anything is about. I would see G'pa shepherding her into a car - and they looked like two sparrows to me - small twitterings, nervous little movements and fussings, and very frail little beings.

The organisation of her funeral was vaguely chaotic - not that she knew a mountain of people or anything, but more it was about the little details.
One thing though, she was cremated prior to her service. Which meant she was not embalmed. Frozen, then crisped (morbid humour, moi?), and I rather like the idea of that.
I don't really like the idea of having any part of me substituted or bolstered with embalming fluids, just so my dead self can be looked at prior to being baked to a crisp! It seems even more morbid than this blog entry!

Not that I'm planning to shuffle off any time soon. But yeah, her funeral turned out pretty smooth after the semi-fiasco of its planning twixt my mum, her brother, and her father.
(Much as I love my uncle, I didn't think one of her favourite restaurants was "quite"the place to stick someone's coffin for a service!)

Some churchy shaped place with a celebrant or whatnot, eh, that's good enough. But what I really think would be morbid and hilarious would be if one could be one's own celebrant. Posthumously.. "insert dvd and press play"!


I read a couple of poems for her. Scottish ones, because she wanted to visit the place again but never quite made it. I remember little bits and pieces about her fondly. Wrapping 'em in cloth, and putting them in the Nana box of the brain.