My grandmother passed away about a month ago. Tragic thing when it happens but to be fair we knew it was coming for a quite a while. She lived quite a life. During the war when she was just a little girl, she ran through the city taking important messages from a place to another. I’ve heard stories how she fought with older boys and kicked their arses. And that’s how she was: very strong minded and I guess kinda hard person to deal with at sometimes, but it made her achieve great things in life.

My granny wasn’t that close to me, especially as for the last five years or so she was very sick and I didn’t see her much. To be honest she was ill for most of her adult life. But she was so strong and stubborn that she refused to give up. We always said how she must have had more lives than a cat! Anyway, because of all this it was somehow easy for me to accept this tragic loss. Mostly I was sad on behalf of my dad. He lost a mother and I don’t even pretend to know how hard it must be. It’s impossible to find suitable words of comfort on a moment like that for somebody who has just gone through that kind of tragedy. No matter what you say and how sincere you are, you always feel like a total twat!

Death is an overwhelming thing. It’s hard to understand. Confronting something so big and so final makes everybody equally small and vulnerable. It puts everybody on the same line. A sense of weakness takes over. Nothing left to do, nothing you can say to make a difference. You just have to deal with it. In the funeral I watched as my dad, my uncle and my granny’s husband cried their eyes off and it was such a strange thing to see. Like my granny’s husband, seventy-something old man, seen his fair share of life and been around the world, leading a successful company, danced with Lauren Bacall in a casino in Monaco – but there he was now, crying like a child trying to mumble the last goodbye to his loved one. Fucking moving image to see! I didn’t cry because the cunt I am, I never understand things this big. Even now I’m thinking “she isn’t really gone, is she?”

I was listening to the words the priest said as he was blessing granny. He said how granny was a strong and stubborn person – the same image I had – but also how very loving, caring and understanding she was. I started thinking about it and it was very true. She was always worried about us and wanted to know how we kids were doing. But most of all she was big hearted and open-minded. Even though she always may not have approved what we were doing, she always supported us. She was worried about what kind of a bohemian dreamer I was growing into, or why couldn’t I for once wear something else than “those god-awful jeans”! But she always understood the things that were important to somebody else and supported her loved ones – also our band.

I hope that I would one day be more like her and not the judgemental arsehole I am today. If there’s one thing I can learn from my granny it is that open-minded and understanding approach to life and the ability to see good in everything, even if it’s not something I appreciate. I have still a long way to go…