Eulogy for my Gran

Grans Eulogy – Eileen Mary Ball (nee Henderson)

b 11 June 1933 d 2 June 2020

Written by Malcolm Baron

June 2020.

I’m Malcolm, the oldest Grandchild of George and Eileen. I’m 35 years old now, and until last year, I had three Grandparents. It’s fair to say a lot of my mates are somewhat jealous of this, and I am certainly proud of the longevity of all of them, and also thankful for the quality genetics. 

Whilst funny might not be the right word, it’s interesting that Grandpa Ball is my last grandparent left, as his health started to go down hill the earliest. For as long as I can remember, we would tease Gran with “Ohh Jesus Eileen, George is having a turn, get him his pills!”

The other thing that one might find slightly unusual is that Gran and I had multiple (at least 5) discussions, 20 years ago, about how I’d definitely be there and do a speech at her funeral. Reasonably morbid you might say, but Gran was from the old school – very fatalistic and honest, and from my memory, never really feared or avoided death. She just knew it would happen one day so why not talk about it, be candid, and in this case, lock in the top quality speaking talent for your last hurrah.

As she knew it would, in the end her Parkinson’s illness took her life. She left us in about the best way possible – with warning, calmly, peacefully, and surrounded by her family. I am very thankful for this, as it allowed her children time to gather their thoughts, say their goodbyes and thank yous for a life well lived as a kind Mother, Grandmother and Great Grandmother.

My last goodbye in person was in December last year, when I was blessed to be able to take my then 5 month old daughter, Mila to meet Gran, and for Gran to see her 9th Great Grandchild (the 10th also got a chance to meet her more recently which i’m sure was special for Rachel and Joey). Although to this day, we arent sure if it was the arthritis or just not wanting to let Mila go, we had to prise baby Mila out of Grans grasp when it was time to leave! She was absolutely animated holding her, she held her close, and was rubbing her little leg, showing her lots of affection.

Gran really is one of the last of the old school. She and Grandpa were salt of the earth, small town people – something Grandpa would later proudly wear as a sticker on his car bumper right up until he stopped driving “I’M FROM FRANKLIN NOT AUCKLAND”.  They were not fancy or flashy by any means, this probably goes hand in hand with not ever having much money.

 My dad is a Chef by trade and I remember vividly from a young age, loving going to Gran’s for a visit, so long as we bounced before dinnertime. If we stayed for dinner it was for sure to be meat and three veg. Most likely brocolli that was white from being boiled within an inch of its life, cabbage which I hate to this day, and corned beef. If it was up to Gran, she would never eat out, but Grandpa had a taste for serve-yourself Chinese. He used to love going to those Chinese restaurants where you could pay per container. He’d be more than willing to have crumpled wontons, so long as it meant he smashed two more into the takeaway container to get more than his money’s worth.

The last few days I’ve been yarning with my cousins about memories, and multiple cousins mentioned their love for curried sausages cooked by Gran. I asked them if we were talking about the same Gran, because my brothers and I never got served this on our visits! 

It’s awesome in a way, that we all have such different and unique experiences of our Grandparents. None of us got kicked out of the caravan as much as Bradley, so he has that as one of his key memories. I do recall one summer, we’d been at Mount Maunganui for less than half an hour, and Brad came down, helped himself to a raro juice iceblock from the freezer, let out an almighty burp, and proceeded to get a full ban from Gran and Grandpa’s caravan for the entire summer.  

Michelle Chawner remembers ‘wee buckets’ in the awning. When you’d go and stay for a night (I don’t recall if it was a treat or a punishment) you were allowed to wee in the bucket to avoid having to walk to the toilet in the dark. Looking back on it, it was probably only ever used by the 60+ year old Grandparents, but the fact they had Grandkids to stay helped them explain it when they had guests the next day. 

Rob Ball remembers sneaking into the pantry at Routley Avenue, (which could have been a spare bedroom) with his cousin Brad, and smashing the Raro packets straight. Gran wasn’t born yesterday, and caught them because of their orange tongues. 

A lot of you here would remember the Routley Ave property. One of the key features was the steep driveway, and concrete steps leading to the front door. Down in the garage, they had that special room on the side where they would host delinquent Welsh Rugby players and the like.  Later on, when they had stopped hosting guests, this became the clubrooms of the Secret 7 – a group of cousins, named directly after Enid Blyton’s book characters. This was all well and good until David G came along made it a gang of 8! I don’t really remember what mischief we got up to, apart from making newsletters in Microsoft Publisher, but it was good times.

Gran used to come around to our house in Epsom for every milestone. birthday, hockey match etc. She’d rock up, give us kisses after we had rushed out to greet her on the street, and then like it smelt, she’d be in the ironing cupboard (yes we had a full cupboard dedicated to ironing) and within 8 minutes of arriving, she’d be hammering out a month’s worth of ironing that a mother of three couldn’t muster the courage to face. Once that was done, she’d hit the “sun room” for the folding, and if she got all that done, she’d either look for some more jobs to do, or be told  “relax Eileen would ya” by my father, at which point she might settle down and have a small gin. 

It’s been over 10 years since I lived in New Zealand full time, so naturally my regular contact with my Gran has diminished. The love never changed though, and whenever she would see me, I knew she was proud of me. We had a beautiful holiday in Australia in 2012 to celebrate my brother Hamish’s graduation from vet school – something Gran was immensely proud of every grandchild.

I’ve written a really long introduction here and not really gotten to the point! The funeral was a week ago now, and I didn’t get this written in time. My cousin Aimee did an awesome job at speaking on behalf of my cousins and my brothers at the funeral, but I decided to finish this piece and enshrine it on malchieb.com 

I’ll miss Gran’s generous spirit, I’ll miss Gran’s honesty, I’ll miss Grans hugs. Gran, through her words and actions, taught me to go all in on things. Through watching her give her time so completely to her causes, I definitely have some of that in me. 

This is one of the most unusual deaths of someone close to you I have experienced in my life so far. It wasn’t a sad death. It was slow, it was peaceful, it was expected, and by the end it was welcomed. We all had time to prepare, grieve, and then be at peace. Gran hadn’t been Gran for quite a while, as the disease slowly robbed her of her freedoms. 

When Gran’s time came last week, Mum called me to give me the news. The fact that Mum wasn’t crying and was quite calm, showed how prepared we were for the inevitable. We briefly chatted and reminisced before we finished on the phone. Thirty minutes or so later, I went in to get Mila out of bed from her nap. At that point I had a deep cry, and a family hug with Maria and Mila as I shared the news with her, only for her to keep smiling and playing, as a 9 month old does. It was an amazing thing that Gran and Mila were able to meet last year, Gran was lucid and happy that day and held Mila with a motherly touch (see: grip). 

To a wonderful woman, to a life well lived. We will talk of you fondly, always, with love.