Made with love... and grief.

After my writing hiatus, I knew the first piece I wanted to write was on my grandma, Phebean. I knew it after she arrived again in June.

On the day she arrived from Nigeria, I received a call from my mum, and she was really upset. She wasn't crying or anything, but I could hear it in the tone of her voice. My mum is naturally expressive, so even this caught me off-guard. She shared some things, which I won't go into (because I am still very much a Nigerian babe). Without putting our business out there, the Alzheimer's had progressed significantly since her last visit.

There was a delay in writing this because I didn't know whether it would be authentic. I love my grandma. That being said - without a 'but', my grandma pisses me off, especially after living with her over the last few months again. So, in the space between thinking of writing this and putting pen to paper, I realised that besides the fact that I work in HR, I deeply and wholly believe in equality. That, therefore, means that I can get annoyed by my 80 year old grandma, and I can show/tell her that I am annoyed. And I do, even when I know that she has Alzheimer's, which is terrible. I still love her.

'How does Phebean annoy you?' You may be thinking. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the ways my grandma annoys me. Some are down to her being elderly or her personality or the culture/society she was raised in or all of the above:

• Starting strong with the incessant prayers for a good husband. This can happen at any point in the day, by the way: when I bring her food, when she walks into my room, when she wakes up, when I'm washing the dishes. She does this to my sister too. This was cute at first, but this happens every week, if not every day.

• If you tell Phebe she's done something wrong, she'll tell you to shut up - straight. In inaudible Yoruba too, so it cuts deeper.

• She sucks up phlegm. All day. This is an old age thing, but still.

• She reads absolutely everything out loud, on the TV, sign posts, everything.

• If my mum shouts for me from downstairs, my grandma will be joining in.

I could go on, but that'll add to the image you must have of me being a terrible person (as if writing all this isn't bad enough).

But I love my grandma.

Having her around has given me insight into how my family has become who we now all are, and on how my family and I love. We really care for people, and I know that's from her. Being around my grandma makes me think about what I could be doing now, as a 28 year old girl, to ensure I have a good quality of life by the time I'm 80. I think about my proverbial village, how we can support one another to enjoy our later years. Her village is looking after her now. I think about spirituality because of Phebe. As annoying as the prayers are, I understand that she sees it as her duty to ask God for the protection of her future generation, just as her predecessors. I think about how technology has advanced from when she was young until now.

I get down when I think about other things, like the effects of colonialism on Nigeria. I'm a first generation British citizen, meaning my parents migrated from Nigeria to the UK. One of the many gifts of colonialism was the shift from locally beneficial agriculture to agriculture which benefitted Europe. This is one of the many ways in which Nigeria's economy died, to fuel the UK's. So my parents had to move. For us, this meant I didn't meet my grandma until a lot later than grandkids typically meet their grandparents. So... Colonialism has a hand in how long it took to form a real (in real life anyway) relationship with my grandma (or am I stretching it?). I only get to really know my grandma post Alzheimer's.

I am grateful to be in a place where I can be proactive about what my 80s could look like. I get sad when I think about my over-exposure to information. Information is great. The fact that we have people who have studied forgetfulness in old people and given it a name is also great. Through my own personal searches, I now know that with old age, the decline is inevitable. No matter how well you maintain your health and fitness, you will become more frail, slow, blind, deaf... insert all the terrible things that come with old age. There is absolutely no fighting it, we can only slow down the decline. That's sad.

My grandma is now the last of her siblings still alive. Most of her friends have also gone. We all have that to face in old age. For those of us who are no longer dead set on having kids and getting married, we may not even have an immediate family to look after us in our old age. And since we are now in the western world, we have care homes to look forward to?

I could go on, but if people decide to read this, they may not get to the end.

All of my grief is born of love. Inevitably, my decision to love my grandma comes with grief of losing her. As sad as it is, and as annoying as my grandma is, I am grateful that she has unlocked another way in which I understand my love.