She was stern. She was particular. But she was also a lover of nature in a way that made her that teeny bit less intimidating when I was younger and scared of her.

Grandma loved the sea. She told me that when she returned to Ghana from Switzerland in the 70s, her first stop was to walk to the coast. She’d enjoyed the Swiss lakes and loved to feed the swans there, but she’d missed the sea.

She described it as “the wide expanse that stretches out.”

She spoke of early memories; seeing the sea from her home in La, recalling that when her grandfather became the first person in the area to build a storey building, the locals said: “the ghosts would not like it, because he would be looking down on them.”

We lost our grandma on Thursday 15th October 2026. I wrote her this poem whilst reading through her words of wisdom.

May His Grace Lead you Home.

Now that your flesh and heart have failed,

and mortal life has ceased:

May you possess, within the veil, 

a life of joy and peace.

You loved and served and taught and gave,

Now to eternity,

that ‘wide expanse that stretches out,’

your soul has gone to be.