by S J Crabb
Just as I reach the last step, the doorbell rings and mum rushes out of the kitchen looking resigned. “That’ll be nanny and granddad. They said they’d stop by and help.” She rolls her eyes. “Hinder more like. You know, we’ll get on far better if we were just left alone, this is all I need.”
She mutters under her breath as she answers the door and as I see my grandparents standing there, it brings a lump to my throat because I have never seen them looking so frail. The grief is etched in every line and wrinkle on their faces and they appear to have aged ten years since I last saw them.
Nan’s eyes fill with tears as she steps into my mum’s arms and breaks down, sobbing uncontrollably. I can’t help but join in because this scene is devastating. Dad ventures out of the study and shouts loudly, “Now, now, Daisy wouldn’t want this. Come on, let’s leave those tears outside and remember happier times.”
Granddad wipes a tear away and appears to steel himself as he straightens his back and places a comforting hand on his wife’s back. As she pulls away, her eyes find mine and her lip trembles as she staggers towards me, her arms outstretched. “Lily, darling, such terrible news.”
My heart shatters as she falls into my arms and as I hug her hard, I feel her body wracked with grief. She mumbles tearfully, “It isn’t right, it should be me, not her, not my beautiful baby girl.”
I’m not sure what to say because there are no words. No mother should ever survive her daughter and I cannot imagine how she must be feeling. Mum pulls her away and says gently, “Come on, Sandra, Daisy wouldn’t want you to work yourself up into a state. She’s at peace now and probably didn’t even know anything about it. It’s how I want to go, tucked up in bed and none the wiser. Now, I’ve made a nice pot of tea and found some of those posh biscuits from Fortnum’s she loved. Let’s go and remember Daisy how she would want us to.”
She helps nan away and pulls her into the kitchen and the rest of us follow, feeling as low as a person can get. Grief is hard to deal with and especially only days after the person who was larger than life was taken. It’s all a bit surreal and as mum busies herself making the tea, we all crowd around the large island unit that dominates the designer kitchen and stare at each other with glum expressions.
Dad pipes up, “I found lots of stuff in the study that I’m taking to keep safe. You know, important documents and some credit cards and money. Her handbag was in there, so we should take that as well and make a list of all the companies she has cards with and inform them.”
“You’ll need the death certificate, I think.” Nan interrupts and dad says kindly, “Do you want me to arrange everything?”
Nan nods and looks across at grandad, who smiles gently. “Maybe that would be for the best, son. I’m not sure we’re firing on all cylinders most of time, let alone now. Just do our Daisy proud with whatever you choose and we will help out where we can.”
Mum passes the drinks across and turns to me. “Did you find anything, Lily?”
“I’ve found her jewellery and watches, maybe nan should have them and keep them safe.”
I push the bag across the counter and nan’s eyes fill with tears as she pulls out a beautiful bracelet. “She always loved a bit of sparkle did Daisy. She was our little star, wasn’t she Bert?”
He nods as nan pulls out the contents of the bag and appears to just want to feel the items her daughter treasured so highly. Remembering the notebook, I pull it out and say softly, “I also found this. Maybe you should have this as well.”
Nan looks astonished and laughing, turns to granddad. “Look Bert, do you remember this? I can’t believe she kept it after all these years.”
He nods. “Well I’ll be… fancy seeing this again.”
“What is it?” Mum looks as interested as I am and we inadvertently lean forward so as not to miss a thing. “It’s that old notebook she used to write in when she was a teenager. She was forever scribbling something in it, she was such a funny little girl.”
She opens it and we can see Aunt Daisy’s neat writing covering the cream pages and nan laughs. “She was always a planner, you know. Used to make lists and everything and took great delight in crossing them off as she achieved them. Look at this, she’s even put the date.” Peering at it closely, she shakes her head. “She must have been fifteen when she wrote this, look Bert, she’s called it her life goals.”
She laughs and I can see that she’s remembering back to when Daisy was fifteen as she reads them out loud.
1 - Be successful.
2 - Be successful.
3 - Be successful.
Mum interrupts. “I think she could safely cross the first three off her list.”
We all laugh and nan smiles. “She was always a determined young lady. I think she inherited that from me.”
Grandad rolls his eyes behind her back and I stifle a grin. To my knowledge, nan never worked and stayed home to bring up the family. Grandad, however, was a powerhouse in his youth and very successful. He started several companies and built a mini empire. He was driven, unrelenting and a force to be reckoned with, and if Daisy took after anyone, it was him.
Nan carries on with the list.
“4 - Be happy.
5 - Be healthy.
6 - Be organised.”
Once again, they laugh and mum says, “I’ve never met anyone as organised as she was. She’s definitely rocking that list.”
“7 - Find my soulmate.”
The room falls silent as we discover the first thing she failed at. Unlucky number seven.
Dad says with curiosity, “Did she ever find him - her soulmate that is? I don’t think I ever met him if she did.”
Nan shakes her head sadly. “There were a few gentlemen friends but no one special. She always told me she never had time for a personal life and you should have heard the arguments we had over it, honestly, they could hear us shouting in the next street.”
Thinking of the photographs upstairs, I wonder again who took them and say with interest, “Did she ever go on holiday with anyone? I found some old photos upstairs of Aunt Daisy in all sorts of places. She was always smiling into the camera, so I wondered if she travelled with the person who took them?”
Laughing, nan shakes her head. “I’m sure there were many men, darling. Daisy wasn’t afraid of meeting them; it was keeping them that was the problem. You see, she was an attractive woman with prospects. The men would flock to her feet in their droves and I know she wasn’t averse to playing with the toys on offer.”
Mum looks shocked and I giggle. Goodness, Aunt Daisy was wild. Who would have thought?
Nan says thoughtfully. “There was this one man, I think she was in her mid-twenties, maybe twenty-six, I can’t remember. Anyway, she seemed smitten with him and for a moment there, I thought we’d have to raid the bank to pay for the wedding we always thought we’d fund one day.”
Now I’m interested. “What happened?”
She shrugs. “I’m not sure. I know she was devastated, whatever it was. I did ask, but she had this way about her that kept personal things inside behind steel shutters and she would never say. However, I do know it knocked her back for a bit. I could tell she wasn’t herself and all she would say is, if you don’t have your health you have nothing.”
I’m sure the same thought occurs to us all, as we realise the truth to her words. Yes, she may have had everything, but her health let her down in the end and it was all for nothing at the end of the day.
Dad pipes up, “She once told me about a Simon Grainger.”
Grandad nods. “That’s the one. I remember the name because Grainger was the name of the captain of the golf club at the time. I think it must have been his son because Daisy told me his dad played golf.”
Nan nods. “Yes, that’s right. I think it was serious for a while, but then one day when I asked her how things were going, she shot me down and told me to butt out of her life and there was never any mention of him again. I thought she’d found out he was mar
ried like the rest of them and never thought anything of it.”
Thinking back on my own encounter with a married man, I can sympathise with Aunt Daisy. Goodness, we are more alike than I thought.
Nan nods sadly. “Yes, I remember now. Good-looking young man; I had high hopes for him. Never mind, not everything works out in life.”
“I think he died from blood poisoning.”
We all look at grandad and he nods. “Yes, the deputy captain told me the captain’s son had cut his foot on a rusty nail in the garden and died of blood poisoning. It was quite unexpected really.”
Dad raises his eyes and says loudly, “What else is on the list?”
Squinting, nan carries on. “8 - Have children.”
She wipes another tear away and mum takes the book from her hand, smiling gently. “Here, let me. 9 - Travel the world.
10 - Dance under the stars with the man you’ve just kissed.
11 - Sing in the rain.
12 - Watch a movie with a stranger.
13 - Take dance lessons.
14 - Sing in a crowd.
15 - Camp out under the stars.
16 - Help someone who needs it.
17 - Do something spontaneous.
18 - Go for a walk by the sea and gather shells.
19 - Compliment yourself every day in the mirror.
20 - Take a hot-air balloon flight.
21 – Exercise.
22 - Paint a naked man.”
Nan laughs out loud. “Dirty cow.”
We all laugh and mum says rather red-faced, “If you think that one was bad you should hear number 23.”
We look at her expectantly and she giggles, “Have sex with a stranger on the beach.”
Nan whips the book from her hand and shakes her head. “Lucky cow, that one’s ticked.”
As she snatches the book, a loose piece of paper falls out and we look at it in surprise. Reaching out, I unfold it and say with interest, “She wrote herself a letter.”
“Read it.” Nan’s voice sounds strangled and I see the tears gathering once again, and as grandad puts his arm around her, I begin to read.
“Dear Daisy.
It’s been thirty years since you wrote the goals you vowed to live your life by. Looking back on them it appears you managed a few, but for some reason most of them remain to be done. On reflection, I should have placed a different one at the top of the list because now I know that was the one every woman should value above all others. Happiness. If you have happiness, the rest cease to matter.
Congratulations on achieving success three times over. Surely you have everything you ever wanted, but it brings with it a huge dose of loneliness.
I have learned that having material possessions is nothing if you have no one to share it with. When love was so cruelly snatched away from me, I shut myself off from finding it again with someone else. I made myself richer, more successful and emotionless. The purpose of this letter is to remind myself that life is not to be mapped out from the beginning, but a journey of discovery and self-development. The main thing now is to take stock of the situation and make changes before it’s too late because I don’t want to die alone.”
Mum’s voice shakes as we stand silently, listening to the saddest letter I have ever heard in my life. The tears fall from every pair of eyes in the room as she continues.
“I now have a different set of priorities that I fear I may have left too late. Now is the time to search for love and make a future with the man I love. It may be too late to start a family, but we could adopt, maybe. I want the dream and that is love. I want to tick every last item off my list because I wrote them for a reason. I don’t want to grow old and have regrets of a wasted life in the pursuit of money above everything. I want to know that I gave it my best shot and took the life I was blessed with and made it count for something.
Daisy, this is the first letter you have written to yourself and I hope it won’t be the last. Maybe the next one will be to my child, or my husband. Maybe the next one will be to my grandchildren, and maybe the next one will be to congratulate myself on learning what matters in life and fulfilling everything I set out to do.
So, stop, take stock of your life and chart a different heading because the world is a better place to travel beside someone you love and loves you back just as much.
Yours, hopefully
Daisy Adams.”
Mum wipes a tear away and says with a break in her voice. “She’s added a PS. You have three years to make this happen Daisy, don’t let me down.”
♥7
When I wake the next morning, the first thing I see is Aunt Daisy’s notebook. Reaching out, I take the book and sit back against the pillows and carry on where I left off late last night. After we heard the letter, there was much discussion and unanimously everyone thought I should be the notebook’s beneficiary and that was fine by me.
Last night I devoured every word of it.
The list went on for another twenty points and painted a picture of a woman who wanted to live her life to the full and beyond. There were even several Venn diagrams plotting her way to success with happiness at the centre of every one of them. Little cut outs of inspirational quotes were stuck in with Sellotape, along with lists of places to visit enabling her to fulfil a certain item on the list.
Even now my head is spinning as I contemplate the enormity of the task in hand because last night, I made my own vow to myself. I will not be Aunt Daisy and have regrets. I’ll do as many things on this list as possible and do them in three months because after that, my brave new world will be upon me and I’ll have no time to do any of it, if Sable is right about the workload heading my way.
This time as I take the train to work, it’s a different journey I take. There is no social media to occupy my time. Instead, I read the notebook and engulf myself in resolve. I will do this and I can do this. Yes, I will have lived a lifetime of memories before I take on my ultimate dream and I’ll have no regrets.
Sable, as usual, is in her office and as I knock tentatively on the door, she looks up and smiles. “Morning, Lily. Are you ready and eager to get started on the rest of your life?”
Edging inside, I say nervously, “You could say that.”
She raises her eyes and I say quickly, “If it’s ok with you, I would like to use some of the holiday I have stacked up.”
Looking thoughtful, she nods. “Good idea. What do you need, one week… two weeks?”
“Um… I think I have four weeks owed. Is it ok if I take it all at once?”
She looks a little put out and I say quickly, “It’s just that with Aunt Daisy passing, it’s made me look at things a little differently. There are many things I want to do before my time is taken up with the magazine. If I do them now, it will enable me to fully focus on my career and who knows, I may learn a thing or two in the process?”
Looking interested, Sable points to the seat in front of her desk. “Tell me, what are your plans?”
Swallowing hard, I perch nervously on the edge of the seat. “Well, I would like to go on holiday and maybe take a class in something, um… art perhaps?”
“Hmm, not a bad idea. Ok, darling, four weeks it is and not a day more. It will give me time to train your replacement as deputy editor and then, when you return, I can give you my full attention.”
“My replacement?”
I feel a little put out, I mean, surely, I should appoint my deputy and Sable narrows her eyes. “Yes, I need to appoint someone who I know will be up to the job. You won’t know what’s needed yet because you haven’t walked in my shoes. I have and they are painful, so now is the time to set the wheels in motion for the continued success of this company. Trust me, darling, I always know best.”
She drums her fingers on the desk and smiles. “You see, women like me leave no stone left unturned. Take the Château, for example. The builders are now working like a well-oiled machine, and every eventuality has been entered on a spreadsheet and plann
ed for. Nothing will interfere with the dream Arthur and myself have because we are in charge of our own destinies. You will thank me for setting you up to succeed, not to fail, and four weeks is just enough time to do that. So, clear your ‘to do’ list and head off to paradise because when you return, you will realise that life at the top is not as easy as you think it is.”
Her phone rings and she waves her hand, effectively dismissing me, and I quickly head back to my desk. I’m not sure why I feel a little annoyed that she’s appointing my replacement, but I have to bow down to her better judgement. After all, she’s the successful one and it’s time I learned from the master.
After work, I meet Heidi at the Cocacabana room and tell her about my plans and to say she is excited is an understatement. “Oh, my goodness, that’s amazing, I am so jealous, can I help?”
Laughing, I nod happily. “Of course, I’ll need all the help I can get if I’m going to make this work in the timeframe.”
She screws up her face and puts her ‘she means business’ face on. “Right, let’s get started; what’s up first?”
Removing the spreadsheet I have already started to draft, I lay it out on the table. “Well, some things may require more planning than others, so here’s where I’m at. I’ve been researching some trips away and think I’ve come up with the perfect one that ticks a few of the boxes.”
“Where is it, oh, don’t tell me, is it somewhere hot, I couldn’t bear being left behind in the cold?”
“No, I doubt it’s hot and actually, it’s not too far as it happens.”
Grinning, I decide to put her out of her obvious misery. “Camping.”
The look on her face makes me laugh out loud, and she shakes her head in disbelief. “You have got to be kidding me. Since when did you think camping was a good idea?”
Shrugging, I refer to my ‘to do’ list and point to several items circled in red. “May I draw your attention to the following items? 10 - Dance under the stars with the man you’ve just kissed. 11 - Sing in the rain. 15 - Camp out under the stars. 18 - Go for a walk by the sea and gather shells and 21- Exercise. I have also added a few of my own that include cooking outdoors, keeping fit and learning a new skill. I think this little weekend trip will cross these items off my list, leaving me free to move onto the next ones.”