Gran's Last Wish

Our Gran, that’s on my mother’s side, was British born and raised, until the age of ten it seems, then Gran was quite amazed to find her mum and dad had planned to emigrate for good, to Sydney in Australia and a brand new neighbourhood. My mum was born in Sydney and she married there as well and that is where she raised me like and by the way I’m Nell. Last year old Gran was eighty-five and sensed her time was near, so planned on one last visit back to England late last year. She stayed there for three months or more with her dear cousin Em and e-mailed every Friday without fail ‘round 8 p.m. Then suddenly the e-mails stopped, we heard from her no more, till late last week the mailman dropped a package at our door. The stamps were clearly British, so it seemed that Gran was well, but when we saw the contents we were dumb struck for a spell. Inside we found two packets that were labelled Heinz Leek Soup and that was all, no, nothing else, which stunned our family group. We figured … well it seems to us … Gran fancies this Leek brew and kindly sent a sample so that we could taste it too. Mum added just a dash of cream to thicken it no doubt, but after eating half of it we had to tip it out. It tasted flaming terrible and failed to see how Gran could recommend that soup from hell to all our Aussie clan. To our surprise the Postman dropped a letter by next day, again it was from England, so we read it straight away. It was a note from cousin Em and this is what she said. “Regret to have to tell you folk your dear old Gran is dead. She passed away last Tuesday, but before she breathed her last Gran told me her last wishes and so this is what has past. “We didn’t want to burden you with debt and all the fuss of getting Gran back home you see, so it seemed clear to us, if we had Gran cremated we could send her home to you and save the legal rigmarole most other folk go through. “We placed Gran in the soup packets, but in the rush I’d say, forgot to put this letter in, though sent it off next day. My heart goes out to all of you - your Gran was such a gem. And please forgive the mix-up folks. Yours truly. Cousin Em.” Some years ago I remembered hearing a news item relating to how this mix up occurred and I thought others might enjoy hearing the tale in verse.