This is Not a Eulogy

My grandmother is amazing.

Grandma raised 10 children.  Her husband and four of her sons were soldiers.  She lived through the Great Depression, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and this War on Terror or whatever we call it now.  She baked bread and cookies every week, cooked, gardened, grew flowers, watched birds, sewed, crocheted, quilted, sewed, and played 500 every week with her gal pals.

This is not a eulogy.

My grandmother is still alive.  I am privileged to be one of the few grandchildren who lives near enough to have spent most Sundays of my growing up years at her house, watching quintessential 90s movies, helping snap beans, stealing cookie dough, and playing the lost game of Rack-O.  I still live near, near enough to go over and see her and talk to her.  But that woman is not my grandmother.

The 94, almost 95, year old woman who inhabits her body is not my grandmother.  That woman has been lost, in part, to dementia.  I will not use this space to rage and cry against the disease which I only somewhat understand, the helplessness that is inherent in the progression, or the unfairness of being the youngest grandchild and losing this woman before I reached my milestone.

This space, this eternal bit of ones and zeros, will mark permanently for the world what I have always known: this woman is amazing.  She has shaped me and written on my memory things that I will someday, unfortunately, most likely, lose.  I accept that my fate may be very close to hers, and so I write in this place that no one can take away:

The dress she made me when I was seven still hangs in the closet.
The quilt she made me as a baby still covers my bed, and me, as I type.
No one made bread, especially cinnamon raisin bread, like my grandmother.
I will never make taffy as well as she did.
I don't even really like Cowboy Cookies, but I loved them because she made them.
I used to sit at her side on the white spinny chair and tug on her yarn while she crocheted.
I always think of her when I see a hummingbird.
She always won at Rack-O because I was too young to strategize.
I never saw my grandmother sit still until she got sick.
She is responsible for my addiction to Days of our Lives.
I hated that she put butter on peanut butter sandwiches.
She taught me how good butter is on Saltine crackers.  Especially the wheat kind.
She knew unconditional love.

This is not a eulogy.

This is the memory I will keep.