We always used to joke that Nan would outlive us all. Even though her long fight is now over, because of the people she helped, the stories she was a part of, and the impact she had on everyone she met, she still will.
I sit here writing this at 6am having not slept since I heard the news. Recently, incoming calls have had me missing heartbeats, a feeling like an anchor has just dropped in my stomach. It’s been a rough few days. “Numb” is the only word I can use to describe how I feel. But this isn’t about me. This is about her.
Muriel “Don’t Call Me Muriel” Jean Donnellan was an angel, someone of such strength and integrity that you couldn’t help but want to be a better person simply by being around her. When she was faced with the worst that life has to offer, she never lost her smile, a twinkling mischievousness in her eyes that belied her 85 years.
Even at a young age, Nan’s kindness shone through. She had responsibilities thrust upon her that would have many running for the hills, but she didn’t falter in keeping her family household together. Nan was helping people throughout her entire life, always putting the needs of others before hers.
If any Hollywood executives are looking for a story to translate to the big screen, they need only look at the romance between Nan and her husband John, my grandfather.
Were I to have a relationship that’s even half as happy as the one they shared, I would be a very lucky man indeed. You name it, the pair of them went through it together, good or bad. They were as close to perfect a couple as you could get and they shared a well-lived life together full of ups and downs, from Granddad being a POW in WWII to Nan’s stroke and everything else in between – you could easily write a novel on their time together.
When Granddad passed away shortly after Nan suffered her stroke, she was hurting, and not just physically. She thought about him every day for the next twelve years. I can’t even begin to understand the anguish she felt, as if a whole was now a half. Granddad’s ashes were scattered across the mountain behind the house they shared together. Because of her stroke, which meant that she lost the use of most of her left side, she could never make the arduous journey to visit him. She will be joining him soon.
Nan defined who me and my sister are as people. Although she was a mother of two, she was really a mother of four. Without her guidance, love, and support, I don’t know where I would be now. Whenever one of her children would mess up, you could bet that the talking to would be stern – you didn’t want to get on the bad side of Jean Donnellan. Even as mad at you as she could get, she would always forgive, forget, and provide a shoulder to lean on when the going got tough. Her last words to me were “be a good boy”. I will, for her.
The afflictions that blighted her in her later years would be enough to finish off even the strongest of people. Not Nan. She beat cancer, a heart attack, a stroke, losing an eye and her mobility along with all the other conditions you could throw at one person. She stared death in the face many times and always won the staring contest – she would go when she was ready and not a second before. On the 21st of June at 7pm while surrounded by those she loved and loved her in return, she decided it was her time and slipped away peacefully.
Someone like Nan is one in a million. I couldn’t have asked for a better grandmother, mother, and friend. Even though her death hurts and probably always will, knowing that she no longer has to suffer and that she’s finally at peace with the man she loved makes her end a bittersweet one. Nan’s gone, but she will outlive us all. The memory of her and all she stood for will be inherited by my children, grandchildren, and generations of the family to come.
Jean Donnellan will live forever.
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