8 years ago...

Eight years ago, my very beloved paternal grandmother died in her mid-nineties. She was a heck of a woman, one of the earliest women to graduate with a teaching degree in my state in the late 1920s and taught all of her professional life. She taught me a love of learning and a love of reading that is still a very important part of my life. She was a remedial reading tutor and used to take me along sometimes when she had tutoring sessions. I learned reading at four years old through those lessons, but more importantly, I learned compassion for children who had learning problems.

Through her holiday gifts of dictionaries, encyclopedias and thesauruses, my love of reading (and writing) helped to get me through some hard times when I was growing up.

More than that, she taught me that friendship transcends years. She was my best friend, my mentor, and in most things my confidante. She was the one who told me my first engagement was a mistake. She was the one who gently suggested that my then-fiance may not have been *the one* for me. She was the one who always maintained that I needed to work in the publishing industry. She was my champion when illness forced me to stop working in my then-chosen career. She was the one, the ONLY one, who told me I would do great things in my life throughout my childhood and into my twenties. She took my battered self-esteem and quietly but resolutely built me up when I'd fallen.

Up until her death, she was one of the smartest women I have ever known. Her nimble mind and interest in public affairs and current events was unparalleled, even as her body broke down under the stress of her many years. I cried tears along with her when her eyesight went, and I held her hand after a broken hip and osteoporosis weakened her system.

And she taught me that a mother's grief can be so profound, a blow from which some never truly recover. She was never the same after we lost my father to cancer. He had spent his last days craving certain foods and she never ate any of those again. It was just too painful. My grief was extreme, but hers was paralyzing. She spent the rest of her days being another parent to me, and I know she did it as much for herself as she did to help me.

Through two marriages, she nursed her husbands through illnesses, and sent them off in dignity. In fact, she married her second husband after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She took that burden on with grace and dignity and made the last few months of his life as fulfilling as she could.

Her death hit me VERY hard, since she was the last remaining member of my father's family (My father had died 9 yrs. and 361 days before her). I maintain that my father (who died Jan 2, ten years previously) and my grandfather (who died Jan 1 twenty years previously) were there to bring her to her afterlife. It is a comforting thought that stays with me.

As I sit here, surrounded by books, working in the publishing industry, married to the *perfect* man for me, my grandmother's influence surrounds me and has shaped my life.

I miss her a lot (I SO wish she could have met Mark!) but I know she's always looking out for me.

Thanks for reading this!