I sung this at the arts awards when I was in grade 12. I was embarrassed and terrified. My Grumpy watched this damn video over and over and over again. He would call me just to remind me how much he loved it. My Grumpy really loved me. He was a terrible father. A controlling, conservative, sexist, racist, insensitive retired police officer turned Barrister turned old man.
He told me the day I was born was the day he changed. He filmed the whole fucking time Mum was in labour, he used to film everything. He was terrible at it, so shaky and lots of very, very boring shots of the family drinking in silence by a pool on Christmas day. He used to cook us deep fried everything and made us watch Mamma Mia 100,000 times. One time, him and Nana took me to a secret island and in the trees we found a present that the fairies had left me. They were really great grandparents before they got sick.
Nana was sick for 2 years before she died. Motor Neurone Disease and it started in her tongue. My auntie moved her wedding forward so Nana could make it, it was a fairy tale wedding and Nana was goldilocks. She couldn't speak at all at that point. We hadn't heard her voice for almost 2 years. Now, when we are all together we sometimes call her mobile and listen to her voicemail. That 15 second clip sends butterflies of comfort through my body. She used to throw us "happy unbirthdays" just so we could get presents and play party games. She to me was pure love and security. I was mad at the world for a long, long time for letting her become so sick. She loved Jesus so much and she wrote books and books of love poems to him. She used to write short stories about my cousin Harley and I. We would meet unicorns and play with fairies.
I used to tell Grumpy he was only allowed to tell me he loved me once a day because it was too annoying. I don't think I told either of them I loved them. Grumpy died in August this year, he had Parkinsons Disease. He had been in the nursing home for a couple of years and it was normal for him to go downhill and then be fine again in a week. I had been meaning to visit him for a couple of months, but I'd moved house and got a new job, I was busy. Mum called to say things were very bad. I missed the first train there and we walked in about 5 minutes after he died. I just stood there holding his yellowed hand and laughed as Mum and her sister warned Nana he was on his way.
My auntie said when she opened the internet on his iPad that day, he had 8 safari browers open of just my name in google and I didn't even bother to call.
