Connor Donoghue, Calday Grange Grammar School

We sit in silence. Still.

I reflect. My mind like a mirror, and, though murky, I remember.

Mum lights a candle.

I remember what made me fall in love with football, even sports in general - Pete. 

Thanks to him, I was scoring goals before I could even say the word "goal". 

Every other Friday, after school, we would drive 45 minutes to his small council house. 

Grandad Pete would be waiting in his front room, reading his newspaper with his chair turned towards the window so he could see when we arrived.

"How are we?" My mum would say, like clockwork.

"Afternoon, Peter, Maggie," would be Dad's line. 

I never understood why I couldn't call him Peter. If I ever did, I would get the old, "Just call me Grandad Pete for short." 

Outside their estate was a small field on a corner, sure, it was very overgrown and a bit bumpy, but to me and Pete, with my jumper and bag as goalposts, it felt like our little Wembley.

The candle is blazing in beauty.

 Eventually, there came a point where we couldn't visit Pete as often. 

At the time I didn't really care... after all, as a 9-year-old I felt I had many, much more important and interesting things to do than spend 4 hours in a house with old people furniture, old people decorations and worst of all - old people, but in my reflection, I regret. 

It's bittersweet. 

Pete and I had so much fun together, but I feel as though I had let him down. 

He had always looked forward to our visits so dearly, but we stopped coming. 

Two visits in one month became one visit in two months.

Wax is slowly melting.

I wish I could go back in time and reexperience his excitement when I surprised him on his 70^th birthday to watch the football with him. 

Even though our team lost, that memory never will be. 

Three days later he is transferred to a care home, his arthritis had gotten too bad for my nan to care for him by herself. 

He could barely move, even in a wheelchair. 

The care home was even further away from us so in the two years he was there I barely even saw him half a dozen times. 

Yet every visit, he was still so happy and eager to talk about football.

The flame is softening, dying.

And now, we sit in silence. 

Still. 

Grandad Pete can't talk, but his eyes still work, so, of course, on his last day with us, we are watching England face Germany. 

He witnesses one last win. 

He needs sleep, so we dim the lights and wait for the once-tall-and-bright candle to go out. 

My last words to him are, "Thank you".