My grandfather, Bob, died this morning just one day after Helen rang to tell me that he was seriously ill after a bleed in the brain and had been given only days to live. Apparently he was comfortable and at least it was over quickly for his sake. As my mother pointed out, although obviously upset at losing her father, it means that his Parkinson's can't cause any more damage. At 82 he was quite frail and confused by the number of tablets he had to take with the Warfarin he was prescribed possibly contributing to the bleed.
   I feel rather strange about the last couple of days: undoubtably upset at his death but in a somewhat detached sort of way as I did not really know him very well and certainly not before the last few years. Growing up I considered my mother's step dad to be my grandfather (from whom I get my middle name) and I can't have met Bob more than twice as he lived abroad in Germany and France and had another family after divorcing my nanna. As her behaviour saw us becoming estranged from them so my mam started to have more contact with her father and after she died, slightly ironically in a car crash on the way to hospital (going for tests in Newcastle, Brian was not sure of the way so pulled over to ask for help and somebody went into the back of his car after he got out with my nanna on the back seat), so my parents started to visit him more in Dieppe. As his health began to fail he returned to England and into a residential home in Darlington which at the time made me feel uncomfortable. I suppose a part of me resented him not being bothered before but was happy to crawl back when he needed support which was probably unfair and my mam was happy to have him back in her life although I did not visit as often as I should have.
   It is still a sad occasion and on the occasions I did see him I remember his frailty disguising a sharp mind that would be thinking a couple of steps ahead of yours even when you thought he was talking nonsense and senile you would eventually catch up. With him goes my last biological grandparent leaving only Brian who to carry the theme through we don't have much contact with anymore but here of his own worsening condition from Tim.

RIP Norman Robert Ledsom.