The Correspondent

And a visit to my grandma.

Dearest Readers,

So I got through three quarters of the way through ‘Land’ and despite my best efforts could NOT finish it. Like a few of Maggie O’Farrell’s books ‘Land’ was particularly depressing and even though the quality of her writing was superb there was not enough of a compass to keep me engaged until the end.

I needed a palette cleanser this week and decided to give ‘The Correspondent’ another go - after having being told by ALL my customers that it was worth it.

Once I got a handle on the whole story being told through letters and emails I found myself really connecting with Sybil - the main character whose love of writing letters and reading books is what makes the book what it is.

The Correspondent follows Sybil, a woman late in life - a mother, grandmother, sister and divorcee who communicates with people in her life through letters and emails, rather than a phone. Within her letters to friends and family we lift the veil on her innermost thoughts and reflections on times gone by - giving a fuller picture on who Sybil is as this older woman - who initially struck me as being quite lonely.

There was a part of the novel that really stuck with me - as it is what I have been ruminating on lately:

“Imagine all that you have said to another, all the commentary you have exchanged with friends over drinks, over the phone with colleagues and distant relatives, all the prattle sent quickly, mindlessly over e-mail, messages typed into your cellular phone, and really, the sum of this interpersonal communication is the substance of your life, relationships being, as we know by now in our old ages, the meat of our lives;”
― Virginia Evans, The Correspondent

The Correspondent is a novel about connection and communication. It is about the stories we tell others and the ones we try to keep from ourselves. Virginia Evans, the author, explores aging and the distillation of life when one feels everything coming to a close. We see Sybil come to terms with past love and the grief of regret and hard truths.

I can see how this novel has been resonating with so many people. It speaks to the thing that we all want to know, for sure, is true: that at the end of our lives we can leave the world knowing we meant something to someone.

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It reminded me of a recent trip to visit my grandmother in England at the nursing home she has been in for about a year. It had been three years since I’d last seen her and my fiancé and I made the journey to the north for one night to check in.

I had been warned that my grandmother might not recognize me. She has dementia and has been on a steady decline for years. But I had faith that perhaps if she saw me it might click.

My grandmother was once a lady of incredible talents. She was a teacher but also a seamstress, great cook and antiques dealer. She was , and still is, incredibly beautiful. Her home was a treasure trove of incredible furniture she had collected and she always made our childhood visits to England magical. She taught me how to cook and sew. We reveled in her stories about how the women in our family were descended from the famous Pendle Hill witches. We volunteered together at the local hospice shop and went on long hikes in the countryside that surrounded her beautiful home.

When we walked into her room at the home we were escorted by a member of staff who stood by and waited to see if my grandma would be confused by my arrival. It was such an incredibly human and vulnerable moment for the four of us.

Here was me; a hopeful granddaughter waiting to see if her grandmother knew who she was anymore, a nervous staff member with experience of these situations going pear shaped and my fiancé, Tom, who stood by with stoic anticipation. For him, he was waiting to meet one of the most important women in my life.

The lovely member of staff called into the room ‘Alexandra, you’ve got a visitor’ to which she immediately looked towards the door, squinting her eyes. And for a moment my heart fell, maybe this was a bad idea. I wasn’t prepared for this kind of heartbreak. I walked towards her and said ‘It’s Jessie’ and we immediately both burst into tears. We held and cried in each other’s arms, all the blood rushing to my head, my face bright red. The staff member cried too, watching us.

In her, I was finally seeing the remaining matriarch of my family. In me she was looking at her 8 year old grand daughter who used to sit up on the AGA and make coffee walnut cake.

We ate lunch together and it soon became clear that she could not remember anything from the last ten years but had a solid long term memory. This suited me just fine - except for the fact she kept forgetting that I was now a mother.

Her and I held hands and laughed about various childhood memories. ‘The Winner Takes It All’ by ABBA came on very quietly across the speakers and she began to tear up ‘I love this song’ she said and Tom’s eyes darted to me in sheer shock. We had just spent a week in Greece where it was the only song I had listened to. ‘I love this song too!’ I exclaimed, also in shock.

I had told Tom previously that sometimes it felt like as my grandmother was getting older I was taking on inexplicable parts of her. Sometimes I walk past a mirror and think I see my grandma but it is me. Other times I feel as if she is trying to talk to me from across the globe. Like her thoughts are entering my mind. It is as if the transfer of knowledge and generational memory is being passed like some strange biological system upgrade. I am the keeper of stories and recipes as she begins to forget them.

At one point Tom had to scoot into town to get some cash out from the ATM to pay for lunch and so my grandma and I had twenty minutes alone.

I told her all the things I knew she wouldn’t remember by the evening. That she was the greatest grandmother I could’ve ever have asked for. That she taught me the skills I use in my everyday life back home - skills that impress people. To that she giggled and blushed - embarrassed with the compliment (so British). I told her my favourite memories of my childhood happened in her home. That she created magic and whimsy with everything she did. I told her that even though she didn’t remember I had two sons who were five and eight whom loved her very much. My kids had called me the day before and asked me to tell her that. And with that information the tears began to fall down her face.

My eldest son, Lennon, 2023

‘It’s very difficult to remember things - happy and sad memories’ she said, dabbing the napkin on the corner of her eyelid ‘And life goes on. It’s like this’ she drew a circle with her fingertip in the air ‘You are the mother now, and Emma is the grandmother’. I nodded and knew exactly what she meant. From then I refrained from saying anything that could make her more upset. I had said everything I needed her to know.

Lennon, my grandma, my mum and me 2018

I could tell she was getting tired so I asked if she wanted me to take her back to her room. We began walking through the hallway and bumped into a little two year old in her pram. My grandma started to interact with the girl and her face lit up. After ten minutes of chatting away to the toddler she asked me to hold her arm and take her up the elevator.

‘That girl was cheeky. She reminds me of Ezra, my youngest son’ I said.

‘You have children?’ my grandmother asked me. She’d already forgotten.

‘Yes. You’ve got their pictures in your room. We can go see if you like’

‘Yes please!’ she said with enthusiasm.

Granny teaching Ezra numbers, 2023

We walked into her room and Tom returned back to help me say goodbye. She had already forgotten about my kids and the photographs of them on her bookshelf. But she thanked us for ‘coming all this way’. She knew it had been a journey - physically and emotionally.

I told her I loved her so much and we held one another again - neither of us knowing how much time we had left to do so. And as I walked away from her I sobbed the entire way out the exit of the home and was reminded of the circle my grandma pointed with her finger - knowing wherever we were, we’d always exist together inside it.

Jessie

xxx