I have so much guilt and feel like I don't have a right to miss her. She lived next door when I was growing up and she is responsible for most of the happy memories I have as a child. My childhood was rough, there was physical violence and sexual abuse. But at my grandmas house there was peace, card games, baking, love and safety. She was such an amazing woman, with a loud voice, a massive heart and so strong. She taught me so much.
I moved very far away from my childhood home and didn't see her for many years. When I finally moved back, I saw her again but then there was a big family fall out, to do with the sexual abuse as a child, I was disbelieved and I could no longer go to see her, due to her proximity to my parents.
I was scared too. Scared to contact her, incase she too, would turn away from me. I couldn't have coped with that. I thought of her often and considered writing her letters, I desperately wanted her to know that she was the most amazing grandma, how much I loved her.
Then she died. It was sudden, my father called to say she had been taken into hospital. It was the middle of the night and I was desperately trying to get someone to stay with my dc so I could go to her. But she died before I could. I never got to say goodbye. To tell her that I had never stopped loving her. That I was sorry I hadn't visited or contacted her, but I loved and respected her so much, I couldn't bear it if she had turned away from me like many others in my family. That one day I hope I can be as amazing a woman and grandma as she was.
I just wish I could tell her. No matter what she may have thought of me.