It was Wednesday night, and my grandmother's ashes were running through my hand like the sand in an egg-timer.
In this case, though, when they are gone, there is no inverting the egg-timer to watch them dribble away anew: it is over.
The ashes came in an olive-green cardboard box, heavy and impersonal, and I was handed them by my father with the words: there's your gran, and a gesture which suggested we should go ahead and do what was inevitable.
My father is full of very difficult love: I suspect it is unique to the north of England, or to men of his generation, or to men of his generation from the north of England. It is a love which speaks of anything other than what it is. 'There's your gran' is not designed to wound the recipient, and is more than a mere statement of fact. It is in actuality a tribute, and a paean to loss.
'There's your gran' are the words of a man who is frozen with grief; who can't dislodge the bullet of having had to watch his mother die in a hospital bed. To my father, love is expressed with a mock aggression which overlays a river of tenderness. I am told that as my grandmother opened her eyes for the last time, my dad said: you've decided to have a bloody look at me, have you? and moments later, she had ceased to be.
Sometimes, in the madness of a kiss, the rage of the moment causes us to utter: I love you, as soon as the kiss is broken, and then immediately regret it. In those instances, word gets the better of deed, and we admonish ourselves. In the case of my father, there is no case of tongue outflanking censorship - it is just difficult love, consisting of five going on six decades of reinforcement of the idea that emotion is tantamount to a sin for a man, an unwelcome refinement.
Yet, inadvertently, my wonderful father, despite his best efforts, unthinkingly made the gesture that absolves him of any historical grievances. That is, dad's emotions rushed upwards to speak to me, and in doing so made the once-in-a-lifetime offer which signified the enduring love a father has for his (frustrating and under-achieving) offspring.
We were each taking some ash, and sprinkling it on the land behind my grandmother's house. The other side of the neighbour's chicken run, over the grass, beneath the apple tree; the blowback was covering our faces and hair; my hands were grey.
When the plastic container was down to a handful, he asked: does tha want the last bit? and I refused, watching the last remnants dwindle away, pressing my head into his back in tears and knowing that his question had changed the nature of our relationship forever.
