The Black Stamp

Belief is a weird and wonderful thing. It sees us through life. It also ends lives. So often, it breezes through borders without any checks, never having had its passport stamped. 

We don’t question belief because we rely upon it far too much, and we do not want it to desert us in our hour of need. That hour is long enough as it is. There will always be a reckoning though and life has its own ways of asking the questions that must be asked, even if it leaves it until very late in our day.

It turns out that the substitute for belief is thinking. Thinking all the way through to the conclusion. Belief only works as a working theory. A temporary solution for the real deal. If your belief is in a god, then with enough thought and the living that goes with it, you cease to believe in that god. Why? Because you know that god exists and there is no longer any requirement for belief, what you have instead is certainty and love. Certainty in love.

It was that certainty that saw me through my grief and the new landscape that lay beyond it. As my world threatened to shatter into a thousand pieces, I held on to the one constant I’d had throughout, and that was love.

I loved my grandparents. Still do. They were this fun and different bonus to my life. I had parents and siblings and we all loved each other, but that was standard, as were the lives we led. Busy, hustling and bustling lives that never seemed to contain enough time for each other, and the time we did have was cluttered and noisy.

My grandparent’s house was an oasis of calm that contained all the time in the world. They’d even captured nuggets of time from previous decades. It was a living museum filled with artefacts and mementos. The soundtrack was from another time. Happy and innocent music about love and dancing. The music alone transformed my grandparents into magical beings. I knew they were older than I was able to comprehend, and yet I saw them as they were when they were in their heyday. I thought it was the music, but really it was the rhythm and vibe of their love. They were happy in each other’s company just the way they always had been. They’d found a way to be themselves. Together. And in finding this, they hit their groove and just kept dancing.

Being in their company was a reminder of what life was all about. There was peace here. But no hint of them slowing down. They were sharp and active. As I got older and bolder, I tried to playfully push a boundary and there they would be, not only having seen what I was about, but anticipating it and just as playfully giving me a verbal cuff. The old lion and lioness keeping an eye on their cubs.

When Granddad died, we were all shocked. I tried not to appropriate any more than was my fair share of shock, but I do not think I was successful in this endeavour. I blamed my grief, when really I was appalled at how much I had taken the man for granted. I had stupidly imbued him with immortality and so, when he failed to wake up one sunny morning in June, the lists I’d compiled with him in mind became redundant. The lesson being, I should have talked to him about those lists. I had once done so as naturally as I drew breath, but as I grew older, I became more reserved and saw expression of excitement as childish. I missed out as a result and so did he. It would be many years before I forgave myself for that and instead cherished the time we spent together. Time that afforded us our own groove and the remarkable ability to share a silence in the best of ways. In the end, I realised that he already knew what my list was, because he knew me well enough and we shared something very special. Still do. Just because someone is no longer in the room doesn’t mean they have ceased to exist. We know better than that, and we feel it in our bones. If only we take a moment and find the peace within which we can think clearly and hear the message of those feelings.

Despite the numbing shock of my Granddad’s passing, Nan’s subsequent fading was no surprise, but painfilled all the same. Granddad left as though he’d just popped out to get a paper and pint of milk. I still expect him to walk back into my life and I am happy to leave it that way. Maybe he won’t ever walk through the door into the room I’m in, but I know that one day I’ll walk through that door and he’ll be waiting. I like to think that he’ll be alone. Sitting with a board on his lap, carving plastic into parts which he’ll use to construct a scale model of one of his favourite planes or cars. I’ll take a moment to watch him. His total absorption in the moment and the task in hand, and yet his knowing that I am there. Undisturbed and welcoming in the calmest of ways. Eventually I’ll take a seat and it will not matter how long it takes before he looks up, smiles and says hello. We’re both where we need to be, and all the better for being in each other’s company. Whatever happens next is far more bearable thanks to this moment.

Nan’s decline was swift, but not without its tragedy. We were all grieving, but she had been cut in half. Suffered an amputation there was no coming back from. I wanted to beg her to at least try to live. For me. For everyone. The words presented themselves to me, but I knew they were unfair. That I’d be cruel to utter them. Bad enough that they’d entered my thoughts. It wasn’t about us not being enough for her. Our value was immeasurable. It was that Nan and Granddad had a deal. They’d live their lives to the full together. Live better than it would otherwise have been possible. But when the music stopped for one of them. It stopped for both of them. The music did not suit the solo dancer and neither of them would have countenanced stepping onto the dance floor alone.

It was her body that gave out, and that was a blessing of sorts. Nan had always been the conspicuously comedic of the duo. She went off on flights of fancy that sometimes made me wonder whether she’d taken leave of her senses, but she’d always been this way, or for at least as long as my Mum and her sisters could remember. She was a dreamer and had fun with her imagination. When you attuned yourself to it, it wasn’t only fun, it was remarkably vivid. Granddad was always tuned into Nan. They enjoyed each other more thoroughly than any couple I have ever encountered. As a blue-print for love, theirs was as simple and beautiful as it got. But easier said than done.

Nan lasted two weeks. My Mum had doubted that she’d last the first week out. From the moment of Granddad’s death, Nan collapsed in on herself and was a shrinking shadow of her vibrant self. But it seemed she was holding on for something. You hear the stories. A son or daughter having to travel back from the other side of the world and only minutes after they’ve said their hellos, the dying parent lets go and is at peace. 

Turned out that she was holding out for something and that something was me. I visited her several times, but each time there were others in the room with her. To my shame, I felt relieved at having those reinforcements. I didn’t know how to be or what to say. We’d both lost the thing that made our lives make sense and I was too far from making any sense of that loss. But as with all of our worries, it was a whisp of nothing that we hold too much store by, because when we were alone together Nan lit up.

She gripped my hand as though she were pulling me from a raging ocean and she leaned closer to me. I thought she’d shout as she was prone to doing as she became more and more deaf, but her stage whisper was pitch perfect, “they say you shouldn’t have favourites, but you were his favourite from the off. First grandchild. And a boy! And if it was good enough for him…” she sighed. Smiled. Relaxed her grip on my hand and then squeezed all the harder, a fierce display of love and strength that will live with me forever. We are stronger than we know, “you’re the apple of our eyes.” She closed her eyes and nodded to herself. A single lonely tear rolled down her cheek. I watched it and felt terribly hopeless in that moment. Wanting to do something other than being there. An urge to return the strength she’d just now passed on to me, but even then I realised it was only for me to pay forward. We none of us can repay the debt we owe our ancestors, other than to live well and pay their legacy forward to our children and our children’s children.

With her eyes still closed she spoke softly. Now I leaned in to hear her words, “I needed to tell you, and only you.” She pulled in a laboured breath, there was difficulty here, but this was not physical. This was a burden she’d carried for a long while. “I did a bad thing, and I need you to put it right.”

The weight of her words stilled the breath within me, and the room and everything within it separated itself from reality. This was a moment outside the real, that then has to be placed back into the world in such a way that it redefines reality. I knew this before another word was said. This wasn’t just the shattering of the bubble of my childhood and the illusion of perfect adults, this went beyond that. This counted so much to my Nan that she’d hung on to a life she no longer felt was worth living so that she could ask this of me.

“I will, Nan.” Now I squeezed her hand, “you know I will.”

“Promise me,” she said, stifling a sob.

“I’ll do everything I can to put it right,” I gave forth of a laugh that barely disguised the tears in my voice, “you’re my Nan!”

That was when she opened her eyes and recounted her story.

Granddad collected stamps. He collected a number of items, including cigarette cards and Nan tried to help him as best she could. When it came to cigarette cards, she’d taken up smoking so she could add to his collection. Back then, smoking was still seen as no big deal. Not advantageous to health as had once been bandied about, but the risks were outweighed by the benefits. The chief benefit was that it was cool to smoke and a very sociable pursuit. Nan smiled as she told me about the feeling of elation she shared with Granddad when he completed a card collection. There was a patient build-up and a feeling of accomplishment. I could see this. Granddad was a quiet and calm man, not given to excitement, but if you read him well, it was all in his smile and the light in his eyes. You felt it more than experienced it, and it was worth its weight in gold.

The pursuit of collecting became a pleasurable addiction for them both and yet another thing that they shared. Nan even began collections of her own. Small glass animals filled three shelves in their bedroom. But Granddad drew the line at cats, even before crazy cat women were a thing. Nan once pushed this by getting a second cat anyway. This was the only time Granddad stopped speaking to her. She lasted four days before she apologised and offered to rehome the new arrival. He told her that was not necessary, but that it would never happen again. One cat was the limit. When the second of the two cats died, he bought a dog the very next day. It was the only dog they ever owned, but he made his point and that dog was my Granddad’s dog through and through. In fact, the only other person he was utterly loyal to was me. Dogs get love better than humans, and yet we fail to learn from them.

Some of Granddad’s collections, Nan found harder to understand. Stamps was the chief of these. She understood the basics. Unused stamps were the best, but some of the postal marks on used stamps created some sort of provenance and added value. Granddad patiently explained this passion of his, but all that mattered to Nan was that he complete this collection too. 

Only, this wasn’t a collection that could be completed. But Granddad did have a holy grail. A unicorn stamp that were he to have one would mean that he’d hit the heights of stamp collecting. He told Nan this several times and she did her best not to tarnish his dream of owning a single stamp. Especially as it had a rather silly name; penny black.

As the years went on. Collections came and they went, but not once did Granddad get a hold of the penny black. Then one day, on a trip to London, they visited a stamp collectors shop. Nan did not know that such places existed. Now she understood what Granddad did on his solo days out. Shops likes these, antiques places, museums and libraries. She doubted he ever saw the inside of a pub, or if he did it was a swift pie and a pint and off he went on his next adventure.

The shop was festooned with stamps. Many were sets mounted in small display cases, but there were loose ones too. Certain stamps were under lock and key and these in particular Nan scoured for the fabled penny black. It wasn’t there and as Nan gave herself over to disappointment she heard Granddad call to her.

“There it is, love!” he said pointing to a single, small, unremarkable scrap of paper. 

Nan remembered smiling at it because it was the object of Granddad’s desire, but feeling let down at how ordinary it was. More ordinary in light of its extraordinary value. 

Now was the revelation. For the first and only time in her life, Nan stole something.

“I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t do it for myself. I did it for your Granddad, only…” she shook her head and sighed, “once I’d done it, I couldn’t give it to your Granddad. I couldn’t let him know that I’d stoop so low. I didn’t want him to know he’d married a common thief. He deserved better.”

“Nan…” I began.

“No!” she fixed me with a fierce stare that I’d heard of, but never before seen, “I will not hear it!” And I knew that she would not. That I’d been told, and I was to respect her wishes, even if my love for her bade me dissuade her from wrongful thoughts of her criminality and unworthiness. 

She continued, “I hid the stamp until I could work out what to do for the best. Only…” another tear fell from her eyes, “I left it too late. I was a coward as well as a thief and the guilt of what I did has weighed heavily upon me every day since.”

Then she told me of the hiding place. A secret cubby in the bureau downstairs. She gave me details of the shop that I doubted still existed, but would later visit in a strange and wonderful journey of closure and adventure.

When I reaffirmed my promise to make amends, she nodded and smiled, “I’m so glad that your Granddad never found out.” 

I said nothing. There was nothing more to say and she suddenly seemed very frail. But as I stood up, she looked up at me and smiled, “best send your Mum in.”

I nodded and returned the smile and I felt inexplicably happy in that moment. Lighter. It was only as I left the room and saw my Mum that I realised that Nan had just said goodbye. I saw it in my Mum’s reaction. My Mum knew. She knew that Nan had shared something with me and that was the last thing she ever did. I returned to the bedroom with my Mum and bore witness to the little girl she had been, weeping for her mother. My love for them both damn near burst my chest.

I could have waited, but I was never as patient as my Grandad. I had to see this penny black for myself. I needed to do something and what better thing to do than carry out my Nan’s last wish.

There was a knack to pushing the secret cubby hole so it sprang out. I got it on the forth try. And there it was. The bothersome penny black, sitting atop a folded square of paper. Carefully, I lifted the stamp, then put it on the desk top. Then I unfolded the paper. On it was written a short note.

Did you think I didn’t know? Silly woman! Yours eternally and with all my love, R

PS it’s a worthless copy.

I cried. Then I laughed as I saw Nan walking through that door to the next room. Greeted by the man who had written her this note.