Eighty-four.

My grandmother would have been eighty-four today...

There haven’t been many days that pass that I don’t think about her. She was so much in my life, and yet I still feel like so much of her was foreign to me. We had an unexplainable bond, one that always made me feel safe with her. She made me laugh, and took care of me when I was sick. She told me of a time past, and she gave a piece of herself to me in every story. She was beautiful, inside and out.

I miss her. More than any words could say. I miss what she could have been to me in this place in life. What guidance she could have given to the woman I’ve become. But more than anything, I miss what she was to my family. She was our matriarch, our foundation, our center. And as we struggle toward life without her I am grateful most for them. For our continued perseverance and our willingness to be there for each other, because she would have wanted it.

It’s at the end of this day that I’m most solemn for her. But I remember a dream I had the day she died, and I’m renewed by that lovely image of my beautiful grandmother and that glorious red hair.

I love you, Grandma…and Happy Birthday.