2021

On September 14, 2021, the world said goodbye to my world - Dell to her family and friends & Grandma to me and my family.

Oh the life my Grandma led.  

She lived through the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, and every decade following. 

She was a wife and a mother.

She was a dedicated worker and volunteer after she retired.

She was calmly outspoken yet fiercely loud in her later years.

She was a friend with open heart.

She had a sense of humor, even when she was unaware.  She knew when to be serious when appropriately needed.  

She was independent, even with many in her life.

She knew how to love.  Her family and friends like family.

She knew how to care, even if she did not personally know.

She knew she was meant to be...

...Because I was meant to be too.  Our worlds came together the day I was born and oh how my life has been since.  

I am supremely lucky to have had my best friend, my soulmate, my grandma for 38 years.  I was her kid and she was my grandma.  

We laughed.  We cried.  We debated.  We celebrated.  

We were mentally and spiritually tied at the hip.  She felt my mental pain during episodes and gently urged, "talk to Grandma, honey."  I felt her physical symptoms every time she was ill.

She was my best critic.  She knew what to correct and what to let me own.  She watched me flourish.  She watched me struggle.  She saw me at my lowest.  She fought to raise me up.  

She declined, as age would.  In the end, I saw her at her lowest yet somehow at her strongest.  On a very physical level, she was a shell of someone I could not recognize.  I never got to say goodbye...and that has long destroyed me in a sense I will never recover from.  On a spiritual level, her life on Earth was complete but her permanent life in Heaven was just getting started.  As with every independent soul ascending to a fresh start, so did she.

You never left me, Grandma.  You have just left one large phone bill.

With that said,

You were brought into the world when "Love Me or Leave Me" was a hit.  

You left the world when pop culture's next generation came to the fore.  

I will...

Jag alskar dig, mor mor.