4 Business World

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.

We managed to get her to hospital where the young doctor made the fatal mistake of addressing her as “my Dear” which, I’m ashamed to say earned him a kick in his groin from my grandmothers’ s left foot – which sadly for him, was still encased in its freshly sharpened ice-skate.  My grandmother detested being patronized above all else. The woman had doctorate in nuclear physics and had raised seven children (from four different fathers) entirely on her own, she really didn’t appreciate being spoken to like a simpleton because her hair was white.  Suitably chastised he addressed her marm for the rest of the consult, but the poor lad couldn’t really get back in her good books after he told her that she’d have to stop moving around quite so much if she wanted her leg to heal. Nobody told Gran to stop moving.

Once her leg was plastered up properly and the doctor had checked her out thoroughly we took her home and I settled her in for the night. She even let me make her a drop of tea (with a little tot of whiskey for the shock) and sit with her in bed while she drank it. For once my Gran looked ever so frail and it was remarkably strange to see her not moving at all for once.  She told me to give her a hug and sloppy kiss and to get moving on home for the night.
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.

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