My grandmother passed away on Sunday at the age of 89. My family is comforted by the fact that she had a long and happy life, and that we had her for so long. But the fact is, we miss her and there’s a giant hole in my heart right now. 
I made the mistake of looking in the newspaper today online to see if my uncle had gotten her obituary in yet because I live 17 hours away (her funeral is next Tuesday, and I will be flying to it). The obit wasn’t in there, but she was in the list of published deaths. And for some reason, I got so angry seeing her name there. Because she is more than just a name…she was a World War II veteran. She was a wife, and a mother of five, and the grandmother to seven, and she was a great-grandmother to five 8/9th babies (I have a nephew due in a couple of weeks). She was a nurse and a friend to so many.
She made the most awful Christmas cookies I’ve ever tasted. But every year, we’d eat all of them from the tin she sent us because Grandma made them. She was a terrible cook, but until she was too frail to do it anymore, she had a meal on the table three times a day, and unless it was breakfast, there was a relish tray at every meal. She raised one daughter and four sons with an iron fist and her hand on a hairbrush, but not one child or grandchild ever felt doubt for the love she had for us.
We had summers in my grandparents’ mountain cabin in NC playing Up and Down the River, this long card game combining dominoes, gin rummy, poker, and Uno, a game that she created. We didn’t watch TV, we sat around the table in the cabin or in the house and played and talked. We went to craft shows.
She and Grandpa took us to see “Camelot” when I was 7 or so at the local community theatre in the nearby town. We got Superman ice cream afterwards, which was blue and pink and purple ice cream with bubble gum chunks in it. Then she took us home and scrubbed our purple-and-blue-dyed cheeks.
She told us to stay away from Dolly and April, their mean cat and dog, when we were younger. And if Dolly scratched us, or April nipped at us, she shrugged and said “I told you to leave them alone.”. We knew better.
She has never spilled that she knew about the party that my dad and one of his older brothers threw when they got my then-14 year old uncle drunk in the bathtub, and left him there while the cops came. But she knew.
She gave the best hugs. Solid and warm and wonderful. The kind of hug that you only get from someone who loves you unconditionally and whole-heartedly. The kind that you wait your turn for because they feel so comforting.
She and my grandfather were married for 60 years. They were one of the world’s greatest love stories. They gave us all our family, and made sure we knew the meaning and value of family, giving us legacies to pass down to our own children. I don’t know what my grandfather is going to do without her.
I just wanted to tell people about her.
.