Family (Take Two)

My first memory is of my four-year-old twin sister and I in nighties holding hands with our bald Nanny and our six-year-old cousin Julie in a circle. We were singing 'Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses' and my Nanny had a Buzzy Buzzy Bumblebees head band on with a connected magnetic plastic bee bobbing up and down in front of her; when it came to the end of the song my sister Julie and I all fell down.

My Nanny was bald because she had cancer. She lived with my family in our small maisonette and was cared for by my mum, who was pregnant with my little brother at the time. I don't remember the complexities of the situation, how difficult it must have been for my mum to deal with her incredibly ill parent while also looking after two kids of the same age while my dad was out working on building sites throughout the day. I do know that she is my hero for doing it though.

It was a time you would imagine family would flock together, to support one another and to make sacrifices. Instead, the only time my Nanny saw her two male children was when they came round to ask for money. Both gamblers, both selfish, and both spoiled by the family culture of favouritising a human being for having a dick, they would stroll in as my Nanny lay, destroyed and grey, a sick bucket by the side of her, and ask for money for the bet that was a shoe-in. My dad, a man that holds his own mother in such a high regard, retains this memory with disgust. It was a time before carers, so my mum did it alone. I don't know how, particularly with a mum as difficult and histrionic as hers. But she did it.

That was all a long time ago now. We don't live in that house any more, the only time I hold my sisters hand is if we are running drunk somewhere or emotional at some cheesy tune being sung at a gig, and my foetus of a brother is now a 21 year old stud muffin, all swaggering arrogance and jaded cynicism that he is too young to be burdened with. We are older, stronger, have faced heartbreak and pain, both within our family and in our own private, separate worlds. The bonds are not as strong, like elastic they have been stretched and thinned out, but they remain between us, almost transparent, but as powerful as a spider-web.

Every year since my Nanny survived cancer she has embraced both a survivor and victim status. A strange, demanding, self-absorbed woman with a taste for melodrama, she would tell us every Christmas she wouldn't make it to the next one. Another trait of hers was holding every new-born baby in the family, gazing at it intensely, then passing the baby back to their mother before saying in a serious, almost regal tone: "That child will not be long for this world." Just an FYI, there have been no infant deaths in our family history over the last thirty plus years.

She is a conundrum for my emotions. I love her fiercely for her/despite her ways, as much as they infuriate me. I love that she is tiny and has the nickname 'Little Nanny' off my five-year-old nephew. I love that she played with us, even when she had cancer and was a big part of our childhood's when we were young, playing an active role in all of her grandchildren's lives even now. At the same time, I find the joy she gains from causing family arguments and long-term rifts between her own children incredibly aggravating, as well as her supposed blindness to bad eggs, like my cousin and uncle who have stolen off her, which is more likely down to her need for drama. She knows they have taken money off her, she knows they use her and speak to her in a disgusting, aggressive tone, but that doesn't matter, not when she can gain the thrill from my mum shouting at them in defence of an old woman. My Nanny rubs her hands with glee at this. The game is good fun when you're the King, but not so much when you're the pawn. Having realised this over time, my mum took steps away from her own mum, always loving her, always supportive, but with a more distant and guarded approach.

A game was played on Tuesday, when my mum received a phone call from my Nanny's best friend, asking if my mum could take Nanny to the hospital next week. My mum said she was working but asked what it was about, to which my Nan's best friend explained that my Nan was bleeding and was going to see a gynaecologist. She has had cancer of the womb twice, the first time not as serious as when she lived with us, and my mum is worried it has returned. I am angry my mum is worried, and that she found out in this way, from her own mum's best friend? That is bullshit. My Nanny will be loving the questions going round in my mum's head: "Why didnt she tell me? Am I not there enough for her? Should I have made more time for her?" It is horribly unfair, manipulative and selfish.

Love is incredibly complicated, sometimes never more-so than when it involves the love within a family.I pray my Nanny is OK and that this is all a scare that can be dealt with easily. I love her very much and it pains me that behind the glee from this dramatic twist is a woman that has fought that ugly, brutal, and hungry disease twice already. Twice is enough. Once is enough. She has had enough of it so it should just leave her the hell alone so she can carry on being the difficult and bizarre, but incredibly loving and vulnerable woman that she is.