Repeat After Me

Chapter 57

My grandmother was in decline. Some days she could hardly remember our names. I talked mum into taking Grandma to her beach box in Chelsea. We wrapped Grandma up in a mohair blanket in the front seat of the car and drove down Nepean Highway. We were almost completely silent on the way there. I wondered if it was a good idea? I didn't even know how we were going to get my grandmother to walk from the car onto the beach and to the beach box. She could hardly walk to the toilet and back these days.

Mum parked the car and we put our arms around my grandmother's waist and assisted her across the beach. It was a clear blue-sky day, the sea was ultramarine like a Brett Whiteley painting. We walked Grandma over to her monument of independence. It was the beach box she bought with her own money on her own whim.

We helped her up the two steps on to the verandah. I opened up the wooden doors with an old silver key and pulled three dusty canvas chairs to the entranceway. Mum wiped them with a beach towel and we sat down and looked at the view. My grandmother sat with the blue mohair rug on her lap looking out at the water.

'Hang on to this beach box,' she said. 'I don't want you selling it. Bring your kids here and your kids' kids here. Ivy, you choose some beautiful colours to re-paint it. I've always loved the idea of three different colours alternating on the weatherboards, but I could never decide which colours. You'll have an eye for it. This green colour stinks, but I was never brave enough to change it. You both hear me? It's not to be sold. It's to be enjoyed by all of you for years to come. Sit here and remember me, warts and all.'

'We hear you, mum.'

'I was always happy here,' grandma said. 'You just have to look out there at the sea and know that we are a part of something bigger. Everyone is significant and insignificant. We are all miracles who are lucky to be here. When I go, the world will live on. But I was here for a time. It's comforting to know how small we are in the scheme of things.' I hadn't expected this philosophical moment from someone who wasn't sure lately if it was AM or PM.

Mum and I sat on either side of her, holding a hand each. We watched a flock of black swans floating along the shore. It was true, we are but pearls of water dropped into the frying pan of life. Some may sizzle, some react against oil, but the only future of certainty is that eventually we all disappear. Thinking about death reminds us to live.