IT'S NEVER too late

Gran’s advice was always the best – but the question was, would Sally take it?

My grandmother didn’t stop talking all the way to the airport. ‘Can you believe it, Sally? Me. Flying for the first time at the age of 78.’

I couldn’t. I asked if she was nervous.

‘A little,’ she admitted, ‘But it’s never too late to try new things.’

It was my gran’s favorite saying. Out it would pop when any member of the family had a problem.

‘It’s never too late to finish your education,’ had prompted my brother to take a degree as a mature student. Now he teaches history to teenagers. And when my uncle Ben gave up driving, it was Gran who persuaded my aunt she wasn’t too old to take lessons. We were amazed when she passed her test after all those years in the passenger seat.

Now Gran was saying it to me, regarding my love life, or rather the lack of it. I wasn’t heartbroken when my marriage ended. Falling head over heels in love happened to other people, not to me.

Gran often told me about the night she met her Jack – eyes meeting across a crowded dance floor – all the old clichés. They had 50 happy years together.

When my grandfather died, we expected Gran to fall apart, but we had underestimated her.

‘Jack would want me to keep trying new things. He wouldn’t want me to be sad,’ she announced.