Post-its from Heaven by Chris Kohler
I walked the little while to my Granddad’s house like I used to do most weeks. He was living by himself in a little pensioner’s flat in Arbroath. I was trying to visit him as often as I could manage. It was probably a Tuesday or so, though that doesn’t really matter much. I walked round the water towers walls, past the pondie, past the daffodil fields and to his house. He was always surprised to see me.
We hugged and sat down in the living room, surrounded by books. We were trying to record some of his stories at the time. But he kept going back over the tape and rerecording himself. I suppose that none of us like our own voices.
Anyway, he told me that he had been thinking about my Gran a lot that week. That he had been missing her more than usual. It had been years since her death. I sat next to him at her funeral and watched, amazed as he didn’t cry at all. And told us that she was in heaven. Where she belongs. Mum said that he had cried in the shower. He is on one of the types talking about how they met. When they were Davie and Betty. Not Gran and Grumps, not even Mum and Dad.
He was wearing the trousers she had sewn for him. And the jacket he had repaired in town, in a little shop run by a few ill tempered ladies. It had come back with a new zipper and a wash. Going out for his morning walk, with his bunnet and shoes on. He had felt a small bit of paper in his pocket. A tiny slip. It said, in grubby, pencil lines;
Betty’s at home.
In Gods own, ghostly cursive.
He passed it down to me, to prove it.
We smiled and looked at one another.
‘I can’t explain it.’ He said.
‘I can’t explain it.’
