It’s been thirty years since my Gran died. It would have been her birthday this month.

She was the first person to hold me. Mum had complications and was being treated after I was born, and Dads weren’t routinely allowed in delivery rooms then, so because I was doing well, I was placed into my Gran’s arms.

For the next seventeen years she wasn’t simply my grandmother—she was my best friend.

She was a young gran, full of love, energy and endless patience. She let me turn her kitchen into an art studio, happily sacrificing rolls of sellotape, cardboard boxes and anything else I decided belonged in my latest masterpiece. Her living room became one of my first stages, where my fabulous family patiently and enthusiastically watched my many performances. She encouraged every ounce of my imagination.

She died while I was still young, and after all this time I’ve realised something rather strange. I don’t remember her voice. I can’t clearly picture every detail of her face. The countless conversations we shared have disappeared into the mists of time.

But I do remember exactly how she made me feel.

Loved.

Safe.

Completely and unconditionally accepted.

When she died, she was cared for in a hospice. By the time I arrived on the day she died she had already been taken to the viewing room. She was the first person I’d ever seen after death, and I remember being startled by how different she looked.

As I sat there, alone by choice while my family waited in another room, a nurse quietly came in, not realising the room was occupied. She apologised, looked at me for a moment and, I think, said something like, “You must be Laura.” I honestly can’t remember the words and I never even asked her name.

What I do remember is that she opened her arms to me. I walked into the hug, she kissed me gently on the forehead, and then she left.

The whole encounter lasted only a few seconds.

Yet somehow it felt as though she had taken the love my Gran could no longer give physically and passed it on to me at exactly the moment I needed it most.

That moment has stayed with me for thirty years.

When I think about it, many of my strongest memories of the people I’ve loved and lost are really memories of feelings rather than facts.

The feeling of complete safety and joy I associate with my Dad.

The kindness and generosity of spirit my Grandad had.

The feeling of being absolutely cherished by my Gran.

Now, all these years later, I find myself working in palliative care, often meeting families in moments of grief and raw emotion. Sitting with them, and holding space for them, as they process life-changing news and helping them prepare for futures that now carry uncertainty and limited time.

Through my faith, I’ve come to understand something I didn’t know then. The empathy that allows me to sit with people in these moments is not something I’ve created for myself. I believe it is a direct gift from God, nurtured through the love He first showed me in others.

Perhaps that unknown nurse never imagined that one quiet hug would stay with a grieving teenager for the rest of her life. She may well have forgotten it before the end of her shift.

I never did.

Her compassion mattered and it shaped the way I care for people today.

Scripture tells us that God is:

“The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
II Corinthians 1:3–4 (NKJV)

I think that’s exactly how love works.

It is passed from person to person, generation to generation, sometimes through family, sometimes through friends, and sometimes through complete strangers.

The details may fade and the voices may become distant, but the feeling remains.

Love was passed to me by my Gran, by my family, by a nurse whose name I’ll never know, and ultimately by God Himself.

I can only hope that, in my own small way, I keep passing that love on.

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
I Corinthians 13:13 (NKJV)

-Laura