The date itself - October 25th - seems innocent enough. However, in my family, this particular date has triple significance. Why? Well, this blog post will explain it all.
The first reason, and I've got no real reason to expand on this very much, is that it's my grandfather's birthday (on my dad's side). It's been a day I've thought about for many years, but never very much. Not until the second reason happened.
Saturday October 23rd 2010 was the day when my brother, Daniel, got married to Louise. It was a wonderful day, and having various family members around made it special. The Sunday saw a lazy morning at home, with people popping around for breakfast before going back up to Leicestershire (where Mum's family come from). Little did we know that we'd be seeing them a lot sooner than we thought. On the Monday, Dan and Louise went off on their honeymoon, and I ended up at their house for some reason while Mum was trying to do something with some blinds and Dad and Peter were installing loft insulation, when Mum got a phone call from one of her brothers. I could tell that something wasn't quite right, and when she got off the phone, I asked what was wrong. It turned out that Grandma had been found in bed unconscious by one of her grandsons who had been living with her for the past few years, and she had been taken to Leicester Royal Infirmary. We were all in shock, and eventually made our way home (Dad stayed behind to finish the insulation). When Mum, Peter and I got home, we all just sat in the lounge while Mum was on the phone to the resuscitation room. Not long after, we were informed that Grandma had died. This was really not what we wanted to hear after such an amazing weekend, and we were all in shock. When we initially heard the news, I had half a mind to get in the car with Mum, go home, quickly grab a change of clothes and then race up to Leicester, but we decided that it wouldn't be worth it. And by the time we got there, it would've been too late anyway. I ended up calling Dad (almost in tears) to inform him of the bad news, and he promptly came back home, while Peter ended up calling Dad's parents to let them know. Not exactly what Gramps wanted to hear on his birthday. Mum & Dad went up to Leicester to deal with funeral arrangements, with Peter and I left on our own for a couple of days. We did have a couple of visitors on one of those days - Gran and one of our cousins - which proved to be a welcome distraction from all the goings-on.
Due to the fact that the death was so sudden, a post-mortem examination had to be carried out, which meant that the funeral was delayed. The funeral itself was on Monday 8th November, with a private cremation followed by a service of thanksgiving at the church which Mum's parents had attended for many years (her dad died in February 2010, so she understandably found losing her mum so soon after her dad very difficult, even though her dad's death was more expected). Grandma's ashes were buried on Tuesday 9th November, on what would have been Grandad's 78th birthday, which made the day that bit more difficult to deal with. I turned 18 on Wednesday 10th November. Yeah, I'll be honest - really not the way I wanted to start the week off, but at least it got better. After my parents had returned from Leicester to deal with the funeral arrangements, Mum told me that she had been given a card from Grandma while she was in Cornwall for the wedding to pass on to me for my 18th birthday. This was presumably to avoid me getting really upset when I opened it, so I'm grateful to Mum for doing this. I did get a bit upset when I opened the card, but as I knew it was coming, I managed.
Anyway, I'm sorry for waffling on about that for ages, but it was such a big shock for our family that I felt it needed expanding on. I do believe I dealt with that in an earlier blog post, but I've included a bit more detail in here.
Now, onto the third reason why October 25th is special in our family. It's the day when a new generation was added, with Louise giving birth to her and Daniel's first child - a daughter. She's called Rebekah, and from the photos I've seen, she's very cute. This makes me an uncle, and I was waiting since we were told of the news in March this year for the baby to be born. For the week or so leading up to the birth, I was thinking 'Could this be the call?' whenever the phone at home rang, or whenever my phone vibrated in my pocket. I even took the house phone off its cradle and into my bedroom when Mum & Dad went shopping a couple of days ago! Unfortunately, my shifts at work for this coming week mean that I won't be able to travel down to Cornwall and see the new arrival until next week, but I'm happy to wait. After all, I waited over six months between knowing about the pregnancy and Rebekah being born, so I think I can wait a bit longer. I could've gone down with my parents today (Monday) after finishing work, but I would've had to get a series of trains back from St Austell, leaving there in the early afternoon, so I decided that I'd be better off to wait for a few more days. I was actually still in bed - although I was awake - when Mum & Dad came into my room on Saturday morning to tell me the good news. I was understandably delighted, and I may have got dressed pretty sharpish to then go to Sainsbury's to try and find something extra for Rebekah. I'm tempted to find something else for when I go down next week, but I think a few items of clothing is probably enough for now - I'm guessing that Dan & Louise have got plenty of that! Oh, and I may have decided to give her a cuddly Euromaus toy which I got from Europa-Park in April with the idea of letting her have it when she was born. I've got a couple more things I bought from Disneyland Paris in April, but she's going to be getting them at Christmas, plus a few more things that I'm sure I'll get my hands on between then and now. I'll be going to Europa-Park at New Year, so I may see what I can find that's baby-related while I'm there, although I'll have to make sure I can bring it back in my hand luggage!
For the past four years, October 25th has been a sad day for our family. But now, with Rebekah being born on this date, it's going to give us all something happy to look forward to. I'm also sure that, if she were still alive, Grandma would be thrilled at having another great-grandchild in the family.
I was looking for something to blog about for the past few weeks, but struggled to get any inspiration. Rebekah's birth gave me more of an idea, and it was once again, in the early hours of the morning, when I finally formulated how I wanted to do this. Here's to what will (hopefully) be more frequent blog posts from me!
