Predicaments of a Fashion Lover: I Lack Bravery // A Tribute To My Grandfather

That sentence, in all of it’s detachment and clinical fact, is something so simple yet so incredibly powerful. A month ago I woke up to my mother sobbing, my father away at hospital and my brother in another country unaware of everything.

This past month has been hell. Not in an expected, painful hell, one of high emotion and turbulent moods. Nothing explainable or expected. No, there has been no searing pain or messy cries; it hasn’t been that kind of hell. In the same way my opening sentence is of detachment, so has this month.

When death happens in your life, you have expectations of how it will be in the aftermath. The way it’s described in books or portrayed in movies, crumbing to the floor at the stairs and sobbing, one hand clutching the banister. Falling apart in your office, driving with tears in your eyes. All of these clichéd moments. Maybe it’s because I name these things clichéd, these human moments, is a reason I haven’t had any.

There’s one thing knowing of something and another experiencing it. You think if you know something well enough, as I arrogantly assumed, you can understand the stages of grief and put them into their boxes. My grandfather told me once I tried to box things too much, that I feared real moments of being human I stuck the possibilities away from sight. He told me I feared being human; that I lacked the courage to stand and let myself be washed over by the tides of reality, of real emotion. My issue of vulnerability.

If there was one defining thing I can say about my grandfather, it is of his bravery. He was so brave, for his life he let himself let go and take chances, both in life and in business. In this past month, I’ve had to face up to how much bravery I lack. Not the bravery to fight, to stand up for myself in confrontation, but to take risks on opportunities and people. The small moments of bravery that define who we are.

I want to be brave, I think we all do. I think sometimes we forget the smallest things can be brave. The simple acts of honesty, they’re brave. Of calling someone up and telling them how you feel, be it of love or of dislike. My grandfather said my generation spend too much time on our phones, texting away instead of calling someone up and hearing their voice; how they would sigh in moments of sadness or quieten as they became tired. He told me I needed to learn to be brave, because I put myself down, boxed myself in when I needed to stand tall.

I think he saw the moments I became quiet before I did. The period of time I lost my voice, no longer proudly singing like a bird in the soft morning sun. I don’t know if he ever knew what happened to me, of a disappearing love at 16 and a terrible summer. He could sense it and in moments of lull he’d talk to me about all of the things he had done when he was young, asking me if I thought they were good or bad, if they made him a good or bad man. Because even someone so undeterred, so undefeatable and wise as my granddad, so confident and charming, he knew he wasn’t perfect even if I hadn’t realised this yet. When you think of a grandparent, you forget they’re human as well as being the person who has tales for you, soft records that play, funny jumpers and silly jokes. My granddad would start singing in the middle of conversations, songs I usually didn’t know but I’d always laugh. It’s only recently I’ve noticed I have this habit too, singing randomly in conversations to make someone smile.

My granddad showed me how human he was, how proudly so, even if I spent my life too wrapped up in something else; toys aged 5, schoolwork at 14, boys and emotions at 17. For that I am thankful for – being taught to be human, proudly, warts and all is one thing I needed.

In the Christmas of 2013, my grandfather took me to one side and told me three things you need in life. 1. Family. 2. Honesty. And 3. Love. These three things, they’re the most important things in life. He told me how powerful I am, even if I didn’t think I was. I was born a tornado, to go and do all of these incredible things because I was born a Ramsay, something to be proud of. Accepting I was a tornado would mean accepting letting go, letting myself be vulnerable once more with life instead of floating happily as the breeze.

Perhaps I’m being too overdramatic, to soft in my heart but harsh with my mouth. Perhaps you reading this wonder why I’m spilling myself out like this, being so romantic about life. And yet, I do not care. I think being open with our emotions has somehow become tangled with our idea of dramatics. I have a friend who’s American. She is very sweet, with such flowery language and high compliments, but at times it can feel fake. Too overdramatic, too freaking nice when really she is being open, knowing to share exactly how she feels in times of joy, wearing her heart on her sleeve. I admire her for that.

In this past month I’ve decided I’m a tornado. And if my grandfather can be proud of me when I was quiet and sad, I can be proud of every single messy thing I will encounter being a tornado. Every moment of sadness, every stupid decision, every risk will all come together and work out. It all comes out in the wash.