Testimonial
written by: Matilda
Thursday, 3 October
17:08
K.
1m ago
🎤 Voice Note, 5:14
“Hey, sis.
I can picture you rolling your eyes at the thought of having to get your headphones out for this, sorry! My hands were too cold to type, and I express myself better out loud anyway… yeah. It’s been a while, huh? I miss our chats. Actually I found something that made me think of you- you remember Grandma’s leather bag we discovered whilst emptying the cottage? Well, I found it in the back of the cupboard and used it for work today, it went so well with my new coat I bought last weekend! You’d love the combo. Anyway, I found a hidden pocket in this bag and in it was… an unfinished pack of polos. Strange, right? Four left. I never had Grandma down as a polo person. Anyway, you’d think I’m crazy because they are almost two decades old, but I had to try one. They were fine, it’s just sugar anyway…
I don’t know… it just makes me realise how much of her we never got to know. And… no one ever talks about her. And we can’t ask because you know the look they will give us if we do. Like the thin layer of glass that normally coats their eyes just shattered, the tears can no longer be held back, and they flinch from the impact. The room goes quiet and you’re wishing you never opened your mouth and curse the one time you chose to speak. I know you know what I mean. And yet I find myself doing it again and again, like it’s the first time, even though the ache feels like a familiar bruise.
I am pining for anything, any sense that she lived at all. I know it’s because she was too remarkable, and that she left such a large dent in their hearts, but it feels like she has become taboo. Or like they don’t want to share their memories for fear of losing them, and her a second time as a result. As if the memories were her fruit cake that no one can replicate, and someone inevitably, unknowingly, eats the last slice. Don’t they realise the dead never die if they live on in our collective consciousness?
I try to carry her with me, in the form of her bag or her necklace, but I can never speak with her. I can’t remember her voice, let alone her thoughts on the universe.
What would she say to us now? Would she be proud? Did she love autumn like you, the sound the leaves make underfoot? The smell of the dewy morning stinging her nose, the ornate, jewelled spiderwebs? I know she would’ve scolded us for working too hard, even though she did the same. She must’ve done the same, as an accountant in the sixties.
It’s funny… the more time passes, the blurrier the images of childhood get, the more painfully real the days get now, the less I understand how to categorise grief. I don’t miss her for who she was anymore. I miss her for what she could’ve been. An extra pair of legs on gentle walks, hands when we moved, or eyes at our graduations. A witness to our lives, and us to hers. So that we could tell each other’s stories when no one else would. So that when we eventually see each other again, in whatever form that takes, we can pick up from where we left off.”
K.
Now
🎤 Voice Note, 0:48
“Oh my word, how I’ve rambled! I just have a lot to say to you, I guess. I know you’d just tell me to journal it down instead, but I think it’s important to vocalise. Helps us feel less alone. Helps me feel less alone. Pretending you’ll listen to these helps me feel less alone. You’re just busy… that’s why… that’s why you never answer.
…
I hope that, wherever you are now, you and Grandma get to share.”
- Testimonial - July 8, 2025
