It's Over Now: How I found the strength to carry on

By Karrine Watson

If life kept throwing you challenge after challenge, would you keep your head up?

It's over now is an honest and deeply personal account of Karrine's life-changing and challenging circumstances. It will touch your heart and will leave you filled with hope.

After being abandoned by her mother whilst she lay sle

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karrine Watson
• Release date: Aug 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781739492304

Book preview

PROLOGUE – THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WORLD

Idon’t know if you’ve ever had to dial 999, I hope you never have to, but I’ll never forget the day I did. As you press the keys, your hands shake with urgency and determination because when you call 999 for the person you adore most, you become completely consumed by fear and love at that exact moment.

You are scared of the intensity of your love, terrified that this love might slip through your fingers. Desperate for help, you cling to hope. The paramedics will fix it; the doctors will know what to do. I was pleading. Everything – will – be – OK.

Yet, as I watched my queen enter the ambulance – frail, thin, sick – I realised I was alone. I started to understand that this is why she taught me how to deal with life, to be independent. She was preparing me, educating me for a life without her.

The worst kind of life I could ever imagine.

The queen of my life is my great-grandmother, the one who raised me – she was my mum’s paternal grandma. So really, my queen was my great-grandma. But to me, she was everything. She was my mum, my dad, my grandma, my great grandma – whatever I needed. She was family. She was my queen.

Some knew her as ‘Sister Barker from church’, while others called her ‘Aunty Inez’, ‘Nez’, ‘the neighbour in the purple house’ or even ‘Inez, the fifth sibling out of 12’. My queen took me on when she entered her retirement. She would have been 62 or 63 years old when I came to live with her.

I was born in London on 1st November 1992 at King’s College Hospital but was raised by my great-grandmother in Manchester from the age of one. She had no help, no support, she had to pay for my school dinners, and she received no child benefit or maintenance payments from my parents. She had to carry me everywhere, and never once did she complain. What she did was selfless. She was supposed to be enjoying her retirement but was spending all her retirement money on me.

I got to enjoy my life and travel to many beautiful countries – I grew up around a much older generation and loved it; they taught me things I am only now beginning to understand. My queen taught me how to cook, bake, save and live independently (and so much more). She taught me the true meaning of love. She always had a story to tell based on a past event in her life, and it would inspire and teach me; she was incredible. I am the woman I am today because of my queen, and I am eternally grateful to her.

I now have my two daughters Ariyana who is three, and Aquilah, who is nine months old. They are now the most important people in my life and will be forever. I live for them. Everything I do is for them, and I want them to enjoy their lives even more than I did. My grandma always said,

‘Make sure the first thing you do when you open your eyes is to thank God for life. Same when you go to bed.’ and ‘Don’t forget to pray for those around you’.

I live by her advice and ensure my children do too. So, thank you, God, for my queen, my grandmother. My life wouldn’t have been the same without her.

She was battling cancer but didn’t tell me so I wouldn’t worry. I wish she could have told me sooner, that I could have helped her more and been there for her. It was my turn. But this was all a part of her plan.

Visiting her one day, I was shocked to find her in bed in the middle of the day,

‘Grandma,’ I said, ‘what’s wrong?’

‘I’m OK,’ she said with a slight moan and a pained smile.

‘No. you’re not. What’s happened?’ She didn’t reply. It looked like she hadn’t moved in a while. The room smelt awful. I started to search, trying to figure out where the smell was coming from. I kept looking around. There was stale, rotting food in the bin, untouched. Then I did the one thing I didn’t want to do, I lifted the duvet cover. I gasped at what I saw.

‘You’re going straight to the hospital now!’

From the day I called that infamous number to the day she died, she didn’t leave the hospital. For seven weeks, I would visit her every day. We would take selfies and I would try to smile. I’d hug her and cry with her as I spent my time with her.

My queen passed away on 17th May 2015. The day she died, I lost all my family. My queen was the only person who had been there for me. It had always been just me and Grandma. And then, I was alone.

It didn’t seem real. I didn’t believe it.

It was only when I used to call the landline – I know that number off by heart – and no one answered that things started to sink in.

I’d call her and call her. There was no answer.

It was only when I used to drive to the house and see she wasn’t there that things started to sink in. I’d park outside, staring at the white front door, wishing she’d swing it open.

Then my birthday came around, and I didn’t get my card. It was only then that things started to sink in.

It was hard. I missed my queen. I missed her with every bone of my body. But she had