The Man Who Saw Me: For Ernie, On What Would've Been Your 100th
People leave, and life just... carries on. The sky doesn’t fall. The buses still turn up late. Your tea still goes cold. And someone always says “time heals” like that’s supposed to help.
But when he left — when Ernie left — something in me stayed gone.
He wasn’t just my grandad. He was my Ernie. The only man who ever truly saw me. Not the version I performed for people. Not the quiet, polite, “normal” version. Just me — loud, bright, sensitive, chaotic, creative. And he never once asked me to tone it down.
He died when I was 15.
And just to twist the knife, I wasn’t even allowed to go to his funeral.
“Too young,” they said.
Too young to sit in a room and cry? Too young to say goodbye to the one person who made me feel completely safe?
But somehow not too young to carry that loss like a shadow for twenty years.
I never got to say goodbye. But I never forgot him either.
I remember feeding pigeons like it was our weekend job.
I remember cutting up old birthday cards and sticking them down with homemade glue — flour, water, and love.
I remember his “rounders” — just round slices of potato, fried till crispy and served like a feast.
I remember blackberry picking with stained fingers.
I remember going to the park in his normal car, but with him it always felt like an adventure.
I remember watching Navy boats through his binoculars, the way his eyes softened when he looked out to sea.
Because Ernie wasn’t just kind — he was gentle.
Gentle in a way the world doesn't often teach men to be.
And yet he’d lived through World War II as a sailor in the Royal Navy.
Came home, worked as a painter and decorator, built a life with calm, steady hands. The kind that could paint a wall clean as a pin — or hold a baby like the whole world needed protecting.
He’d seen hard things, but he didn’t become them.
He chose softness. Chose peace. Chose joy.
He chose to kneel down beside a loud, messy little girl and say, without words, “You’re perfect exactly as you are.”
He would’ve been 100 on Tuesday.
A whole century. And I wish more than anything that he could see what I’ve become.
The life I’ve built from yarn and spirals.
The loud, chaotic family I’m raising.
The boundaries I’ve learned to hold.
The healing I’ve fought tooth and nail for.
And my kids — oh, how he would’ve loved them.
He would’ve seen them. Really seen them. Sat with them, laughed with them, made them feel important just by being in the room. He’d have told them stories. Fed them rounders. Made glue from scratch and helped them turn scraps into something beautiful.
And they would’ve loved him right back — that kind of gentle stays with you.
Because before I knew what ADHD was, before I had words for how different I felt — Ernie got me.
He didn’t try to fix me. He didn’t try to shrink me.
He just made space for me. A quiet kind of safety I still carry.
So yeah. This one’s for him.
Happy 100th, Ernie.
I miss you every day.
But I carry you in every pigeon, every paint-splattered wall, every sticky glue collage and crispy potato slice.
In every soft place I build for my own kids.
Because you taught me what gentleness looks like.
You were my safe place.
My hero.
My Ernie.
And you always will be.
If you’ve ever had someone like Ernie — someone who saw the real you and loved you anyway — drop a 💛 in the comments. And if you haven’t, I hope you know this: you still deserve that kind of love. Always.
Comments
Post a Comment