When our granddaughter was born, she brought us great joy. She lived not five minutes away and we were heavily involved with every aspect of her life. Then her parents separated, mother moved far away and our son went through the court system in order for all of us to try to retain the relationship. As our granddaughter grew up, she became more and more alienated and neither we nor her father had seen her for many years.

In February her grandfather, my husband, had to undergo surgery to remove a tumour. I thought she should know and managed to get a message to her. We heard nothing. When he had got through it and was on the road to recovery, I let her know that her grandfather was out of hospital and getting stronger every day. She immediately texted back and said that she was sorry she hadn’t replied to the previous text but that she hadn’t had a phone. And please would I give her love to her granddad. I did so and he sent back a message to say thank you. This was the first ever communication of this sort.

Then he started chemotherapy. After the second dose, he became very, very ill and I felt our granddaughter should know. She immediately said she would like to come and see him.

I met her in the hospital car park to warn her that her grandfather was very sick. Then we went to his room. I told her to go to the side of his bed, close to him. I said to him, “Look who’s come to see you.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. He reached up his frail arms and said, “I thought I’d never see you again” and wept. She hugged him.

We stayed just a short time as he went to sleep. I then asked if she’d like to have a meal with her dad. She said yes. So I took her to meet her father and we spent an hour or so all together. Then we returned to spend a few more minutes with her grandfather.

Sadly, three days later he died.

His funeral was last week. His granddaughter came. She spent time with all her paternal family: all my family plus my nieces and nephews, all her aunts and uncles and her cousins were there, some from overseas. Plus many friends including some that I know through FNF.

Afterwards, she came to our house. She saw that the sign on her granddad’s office was the one she had put there many years before. All the passwords on his computer included her name.  We found a tiny photo of her in his wallet. She was clearly very moved.

Later on she sat and cuddled me and I asked that she shouldn’t disappear again. Now it’s largely up to her. She’s twenty this year.

But I’m so relieved that she saw her grandfather before he died and was reconciled with him. For both their sakes.

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