My grandmother died a little after nine last night.

We saw it coming, she’d been hospitalized for nearly a month and had been in poor health for years.  But that’s not really the same as actually having it happen, is it?

At one time in my life, she was like a mother to me.  I lived with her and looked to her for everything.  At that time, she drank like a fish…was a mean drunk…and I sometimes wished her dead.  She stopped drinking about 15 years ago, and it was as if she became a different person.

In the past few years we were not as close, but she was still very much a part of my life.  She kept my son when I (and everybody else with me) went to the hospital to give birth to my daughter.  She delighted my kids with butterscotch, peanut-butter crackers, and invariably spotty (she was nearly blind and could never see the spots) apples.  She occupied my sofa and entertained us with ribald stories about the goings-on in the old-folks’ community whenever there was a hurricane.

She taught me to garden, and to cook.  She taught me about strength, determination, and discipline.  She was not perfect, she lived a life that was often hard, and I wish to hell I had written down all her stories about the old times when I had the chance.

I’ll miss you Nema.