Dearly loved man

Pictures tell a thousand words. I wonder if faces do too? Meet a gentle man named Cedric Alan Granard. He died on Tuesday night Sept 12th.

Can you see the stories? The child who grew up, the son of a railway man, living in different towns in South Africa. The teenager who learnt Afrikaans so that he could be polite and speak the neighbour's language? The boy who went off to war at 17. The young man who was shot down during World War 2 and spent an anxious 18 hours floating in a life raft waiting for rescue by a submarine? The lover who was denied his first love, and married my grandmother (in the face of her other boyfriends). The farmer who tilled the soils of the northern Transvaal and first lived in a hut... Can you see the joy as he gained two sons? And the family that always flocked to the farm for any occasion! What about the man who ran the petrol pumps and was fooled by his parrot calling him to the phone in the same tone as his wife "LOVEY!"

I met him when I was a few days old. He carried me, cuddled me, held my hand and told me stories. A bit quieter when my grandmother was around, he was still there, smiling, listening and loving. I grew up, he got older, and we talked and talked. He nursed my grandmother through lung cancer and emphysema to survival. He was Mr Do-It, the handyman. He became the strength of many in Haenertsburg. He loved cricket.

I heard his frantic message when she died, and a few days later I sat beside him at my grandmother's funeral, and we cried.

By now I was an adult, and five years later I married. He was so proud! And he loved my husband - the wonderful man of my dreams and my days.

I called him at every opportunity. We'd talk late at night and he would wait up, hoping that I'd call. I caught him out when he was in the bath a few times, and we laughed! He'd complain to my father, but I knew he did not mind.

Then, he fell. A neighbour found him dropped over the bath. We'd no idea how long he'd been there, weakened, unable to move, unable to call out. With horror in my heart as we raced to Tzaneen, I wept silently and prayed I would not lose him. He survived his first stroke, and I held his hand. Breathed again.

Another fall, another race to get to his side. Please God - just a few more years! An angry old man was moved to my uncle's house, and I drove back with my husband to move all Grandad's precious things to his new home high on the hills outside Tzaneen. So displaced. So lonely. But he could not live alone again.

He did live mostly alone. Another fall... I now live in Cape Town and could not do the 4-hour drive. They moved him to an old age home. He did not like it much, but he made the best of it. The matron loved him, the nurses tell me how kind and polite he is.

And then the call. "He's not well - I think you should come". I'd saved my Voyager miles for a day like Friday the 8th of September 2006. I flew to Jo'burg, left my dearest love with a new house, guests and a thousand things that needed attention, and we drove up to Duiwelskloof to see my Grandad.

So faded, so shrunk. When I first saw him I thought for a moment he was gone. But at the sound of our voices, he came back to life, and we talked, held hands, made him comfortable. Cleaned his bedside table. Turned off the loud unnecessary TV. Told him all the news. Laughed.

On Sunday we said goodbyes, and I snatched a precious moment on my own to tell him that I loved him. Why do we "snatch moments"?

Last kiss, last touch. He'll always be my Number 1 - Grandad. I'll always be his Number 1 too.