Now my grandpy was a farm boy and so in turn was my father. Time for another grandpy story. Grandpy had a scar trailing up his head, he told us that he was shooting live ammo at each other with his friends when he was young. Knowing he was a farm boy and me being naive and little believed him. I found out later that it was a melanoma that had been removed. Grandpy wasn’t the healthiest man. Overweight, diabetic and didn’t exercise at all on the account of his missing half a leg. This didn’t stop grandpy from being the best grandparent in the world.

Granny really was a sour lady, still is. She actually gave me socks one christmas. She fills up good looking bottles of wine with cask wine. Cheap aye? One memory of her was when she went to collect the rent from the old cottage out back and gave it to grandpy for groceries. He looked over his shoulder to make sure granny was gone then ripped the note in half and gave the money to me and my younger brother. “don’t spend it all at once.” He would say. Of course if we wanted to spend it we would have to go to the same store/ice cream man because you couldn’t redeem half a note back then.

Grandpy was the best BBQ chef out. Being in the absense of half a leg he had a lot of time to sit and make sure the massive and elaborate breakfasts he cooked were at the level of perfection. He would cook these breakfasts for the whole law family that was up in Whitianga at the time. These consisted of big field mushrooms, bacon, eggs, fried bananas, hash browns even toast. This was just thrown on the BBQ with oil and butter. No wonder he was in such bad health right? Well he had everything cooked perfectly and made sure everyone was fed before eating himself. He never ate untill he was sure everyone had eaten themsleves. Good man he was. Honestly he would have given you the XXL shirt off his back.

Maybe 5-6 years ago grandpy was admitted to hospital. In his bad state my father and I went to visit him in the Thames hospital, a hospital about an hour out of Whitianga. I remember the drive down was a good trip for me and my dad, we listened to soft music and talked about all the good times we’d had with grandpy. Granpy had always had a wooden couch with a little piece of material on it. This was grandpy’s couch, hard, uncomfortable, but the only thing he would sit on. I guess it had a sentimental value to him. While he was in hospital granny got him a lazy boy recliner. This was a big step for granny considering how tight she was with cash. I remember coming home one day from school, walking up to the door, opening the door to see my mum standing there looking sad. This was about a month after I went to see him in hospital. She didn’t say anything and I already knew what it was about. “Sam… Grandpy’s died this morning.” I walked outside, Lay on the grass and just stared at the clouds till it got dark. Though my mum wasn’t his daughter, she was sad aswell. He was such a memorable man and made an impression on everyone he saw.

Grandpy died one day after my fathers birthday, and out of the blue the night before he rang my dad and had a big chat on the phone to him. this is unheard of in the hillbilly farm crowd. Maybe grandpy knew it was his time to go. Who knows. Sad thing is he was only out of the hopsital for 3 days. good thing is he died in his recliner, a sputter in the words of my granny and he was gone.

Grandpy. I’ll remember and miss you forever.

In the rememberance of Jim Law.