Love Knots
Elizabeth Clark
We managed to get them the best room in the place. The twin room had en suite facilities and big bright windows, overlooking the forests and glens we'd explored with Grandpa when we were young. He and Granny loved Dundonald Woods, maybe even walked in them together when they were courting. There were tales of bluebells as high as my Daddy, deep dark pools of frogspawn and sausage sizzles with brownies and boy scouts. Happy days.
These days, life moved at a slower pace for Granny and Grandpa, confined to the care home, wistful, tired and a little bemused at how it had come to this. They stood proudly at the head of a family of 2 children, 4 grandchildren and, at that point, 3 great-grandchildren and another on the way.
On one of my last ever visits to Dundonald House, I found Granny and Grandpa in the day room. Nothing much happened there, but it was a change of scene from their own room and there was the chance that someone new might strike up a conversation. They were seated side by side watching television and in their hands were the opposite ends of my Grandpa's handkerchief. He always carried one in his pocket. I remembered him clearing the windscreen of the car with it on our many trips around Scotland, turning it into his silly hat on the beach at Girvan, wiping away my childhood tears.
But in the care home, there were no dirty windscreens, no sunny beaches and no crying children. What remained was a deaf old man and an old lady whose eyes had ceased to see. When I asked about the hanky, my Grandpa said it was their love knots. If Granny needed anything, all she had to do was pull on her knot and Grandpa would sort it out. It's just as well Granny had gone blind and Grandpa was distracted by the football on TV. Neither of them saw the tears streaming down my cheeks.
Granny died on the Friday. When I visited Grandpa the next morning, he said he was going to be with her. By the following Friday he was gone. After 67 years of marriage, no love knots were strong enough to mend his broken heart.
