I so rarely boast about my work. Years of self-destruction, getting into trouble and generally being a pest do that to a person.

But this poem landed so well at the service for my beloved Nan that I wanted to share it.

Because, for once, I’m immensely proud of something I’ve written.

Would you wave goodbye to the sun
if its light had faded a while ago?

They say that grass can be evergreen,
but even then,
it never stays quite as green as you know.

When the leaves change,
the memories remain.
But somehow they don’t feel the same.
Those summer days out,
the laughter throughout,
feel distant now the seasons have changed.

The rolling tide of those Cromer walks,
silly songs and nonsensical talk.
I remember getting her to sing “Anywhere”
four thousand times,
“Rotterdam” on repeat, without a care.

Stupid, perhaps,
but she didn’t seem to mind.

It’s not until you’re older
that you really start to know
the people who ran around with you,
and just how much love they had to show.

I don’t think there was much
Nan and Grandad would have flinched at.
There wasn’t much that humour couldn’t fix;
and whatever went wrong,
before too long,
it would all “sort itself out” in a bit.

I’ll never forget the last day
I burst through the door,
full of cheer and happiness,
wondering what we might laugh about once more.

She clearly didn’t want to see me.

She slept through the whole day.

Not that I really blame her.
Who wants this lump in their face anyway?

I popped in two or three times,
hoping that she might stir,
that we could sit and reminisce
about how funny things once were.

But she lay there peacefully,
far away in the land of dreams.
And somehow that made me happier;
perhaps things were better than they seemed.

She may well have been
in far better company.

And she’d make no bones
about saying to me at this service today:

“Boy, you’ve got fat.”

And that would be that.
What more is there to say?

It’s funny how,
until you stop to think about it,
those people never age in your mind:
the days out, the humour,
the endless kindness and magic
that somehow get left behind.

One memory, on behalf of my brother Connor:
one day, he lost a red balloon
to the wind in the car park at Roy’s.

Years may have passed,
but still, to this day,
he feels exactly the same.

And then there was the day
we were heading somewhere in the car.
Nan went to climb inside,
but she didn’t get very far.

Grandad hit the screen wash
and caught her right in the face.
I won’t say here what she called him,
but it certainly put him in his place.

And knowing the two of them,
once she’d finished telling him off,
I’m sure it wasn’t very long
before they both began to laugh.

One thing I’ve learned over the years,
through all the grief and pain,
is you can wave the sun goodbye,
but the memories will remain.

Just because the clouds have covered it
doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
The grass will grow,
the flowers will bloom,
and colour will return everywhere.

And every now and then,
when the clouds have finally gone,
you’ll forget, just for a moment,
that you ever missed the sun,

and feel over the moon.