January 30

A week ago,
I found out that my grandma is dying.
Her kidneys are shutting down.
She has always been a sort-of
behind the scenes role in my life. She never really told me how much she stands behind me,
but I always knew it.
And now,
she is in her dining room,
in a hospital bed,
dying &
so we go over there,
and sit by her bed, and listen to her, and she listens to us, and we talk about when we were younger, and when she was a girl, and she makes us laugh,
& then I leave her house,
and hate myself for how little time I have spent with her.
I have lived
the sweetest moments of my life
sitting next to her, sitting next to her bed.
A lot of the time,
I just look at her.
I've discovered her compassion, and realized that there is
noone
like her.
I asked her if she loved me,
she said,
"I absolutely do."
For now, I am trying to pretend that there is no tomorrow,
and trying to focus on the fact that the death looming over
us
doesn't matter as much as how stunning I find her,
or the fact
that death is about to take her,
so that we don't have her anymore.
This last week, I have been a mess,
in the midst of losing myself,
I talked to her on the phone and she said,
"anytime you have a problem, you can call me."
I'm going to miss that.
I am going to miss her.