After my great-nan died, she found a way to get our attention… By Jack Butler-Terr y, 31
Sipping her tea, Grandma sat back and made an announcement.
‘Your great-nan is going to move in with me,’ she told me and my siblings. ‘She’s struggling to cope on her own now.’
I was only a teen, but I knew that my grandma’s mum, who we called Great-Nan, was lonely.
We’d always been close and she was such a sweet, kind woman.
One of my fondest memories was going to see her after playing a footie match near her house. She’d always hand me a steaming hot bowl of home-made soup when I walked in.
So Grandma spruced up the spare room for her mum, and even put in a stair lift.
We visited them regularly, and had lots of fun family gatherings there.
But 18 months later, Great-Nan couldn’t get out of bed by herself any more.
‘She’s got a button she can press, which rings this doorbell,’ Grandma said, as she pointed to the bell beside her.
It was a really good idea, because it meant any time Great-Nan needed help, she’d get it quickly.
Soon, Mum was told she was deteriorating.
Then the worst news came. ‘She passed away in her sleep,’ Mum told us, sadly.
We were all devastated.
I was 14, and her funeral was my first, so it was tough.
As the days went on, we tried our best to go on with life as normal. Grandma packed the doorbell away, with allthings, into Great-Nan a cupboard.
Weeks later, Mum got off the phone with her.
‘Apparently, that doorbell rang on its own the other day,’ she said. ‘It was spooky, but Grandma assumed the batteries were d
