November 5th 1999

I still remember this day, exactly 13 years ago. I remember the smell of the hospital mixed with the smell of flowers. I remember family members squeezing into a smallish room. I remember my uncle making some comment on how song lyrics used to be much less complicated and then quoting the Beatles' "I love you, yeah yeah yeah." I remember seeing my Grandfather cry inconsolably. I remember standing in a circle around my Grandmother's hospital bed. I remember holding her hand. I remember what her last breath looked like. I remember saying the Lord's Prayer while holding hands with my family around her bed after she left.

I haven't really talked about this memory much. This was one of my first experiences with death, at 11 years old, and it was terrifying and sickening. I wrote this date down in my little kitten diary, though, so I would never forget it.

I'm wondering now if I should post this - it's a bit morose and personal. I was intending to write more about my gratitude to Eleanor for mothering my own Mother, who in turn so wonderfully mothered myself, Jenny, and Louis with such profound wisdom, compassion, joy, whit, and skill.

And oh how I miss Grandma's yellow kitchen, that blue room, that den, that bookshelf with unlimited Dr. Seuss books, that living room with the spinning clock on the TV, and that dining room with all the pictures and the candy dish. What a magical, magical place.