My point is, thank you for your patience.  Any thoughts on the nominations yet?  I’m curious to see what people think of the lists.  And may I just say that when you’re having a rough day, a little e-mail from the Tony people is sometimes all it takes to brighten things right up.

Haven’t given too much thought to the Tony meal yet, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Last year’s Sondheim Supper was a big hit.  This year I’d like to do something to encapsulate the entire show. 

Keep checking back on the nominations posting.  I promise I’ll have it finished before the broadcast.

Hooray for the Tonys!!

Allow me to set the scene for you. First, we must take a trip back in time. Back to a simpler era. Back to the days of Nirvana (the group, not the state of mind). Back to a time when “Talk to the Hand” still made you cool. Back to a time when I was a mere 14 years old. True, my 15th birthday was just weeks away. Still, I was scarcely into my teen years and I was suddenly the Maid of Honor to my older sister and best friend. That’s a big responsibility.

As you’ve probably noticed from my excessive Maid of Honor blogging, a lot goes into that job. Dress buying, party throwing, wine drinking, toast writing… It’s exhausting. At 14 and nearing the end of my freshman year of high school, just days before leaving a tropical paradise to move to North Eastern Virginia and abandon all my friends, acting a MoH was a bit much for me.

Instead of the white lace, fancy cake, champagne flute, snooty favor shower I put on this summer, my sister’s shower was a bit smaller. In fact, I did very little to it at all as my mom had to shoulder the brunt of the responsibility. And the bachelorette party? Um, yeah, I was 14. Skittles, anyone?

So now we jump ahead by 12 years. I’m 26 and have had a few more shots at this MoH thing. I’m even willing to say that I’m pretty good at it. Still, how does one make up for a lack of MoH skills from more than a decade ago?

Enter the fondue party. My sister was in town this Christmas for a wonderful visit. There was much fun had by all and several nice holiday moments including gift buying, gift giving, and some much needed pizza and beer.

The day after Christmas I decided to throw a little shin dig for my sister to honor the age-old and time honored girl bonds of sisterhood. Since the pizza and beer had been done, I wanted to try something a little more interesting. Being a huge fan of all things cheesy (both literally and figuratively), I decided that a fondue party and movie night would make for a nice evening.

When I say fondue, I ask that you bear with my foodie-geekiness for a bit and don’t jump to the conclusion that I nuked a block of Velveeta and tossed in on the table with a loaf of bread.

Oh no.

This evening saw two cheese fondues, a beer and cheddar dip as well as a brie and white wine offering. (Admittedly, the beer/cheddar wasn’t spectacular, though I still think the flavor was good.) We weren’t content with just cheese at this fondue extravaganza. With the help of another sister, we also had a white chocolate and cranberry fondue as well as a dark chocolate and caramel dip. Yum.

As if it wasn’t tempting enough to just eat our way through the cheeses and chocolates with a few large spoons, we had to go all out with the dippers.

First, because what brie can be served without fruit, there was a plate of apples and pears. The meat tray saw German sausage, lil’ smokies, and roasted chicken. We had broccoli and cauliflower available. For funsies I bought and roasted fingerling potatoes. Aside from the fact that they’re fun to say and super quick to cook, some of them are actually purple inside and out.  What’s not to love about that?

Still, what would fondue be without bread? Let’s not forget the platter with cubes of sour dough, whole wheat baguette, and pumpernickel as well as whole wheat pitas and honey wheat pretzel twists.

And for the chocolates? Bananas, strawberries, and two kinds of pound cake sat on one platter while biscotti and chocolate mint candies sat nearby.

Add a few lemon-raspberry shortbread tartlets and a ton of liquor and you’ve got the basic idea of my kitchen table. Not bad, huh?

Well, about 45 minutes into the world o’ cheese and wine, somehow someone ended up in my closet. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know.

While there, a wedding veil was discovered tucked up on a shelf. No, I don’t just own a wedding veil in case of emergencies. After her ceremony, Johanna had left her veil at the Bed and Breakfast in Vermont and, being the good MoH I am, I brought it home with me.  We just never got around to getting it back to her.

Upon the discovery of this wonderful and magical accessory, someone jokingly suggested that my sister try it on. Which she did. Inevitably, the sight of the wedding accessory got everyone talking about the wedding events of this summer. After a wistful sigh in which my sister expressed her own longing for having had such a great experience, someone speaking from a haze of blueberry vodka and Sprite suggested that we give her a bachelorette party now.

Now? A bachelorette party? With no planning? With no set agenda? With no warning? Yep. A bachelorette party.

Before I knew it, my closet was disassembled and anything remotely sexy or fancy was tossed about and tried on a variety of different bodies until everyone was wearing red or black (the fake wedding colors), and each person was made up, curled, and decked out in Mardi Gras beads (necessary to show that we were there together). Nice bags were pulled out of the closet with reverence. The card game “Never Have I Ever” made it into a bag on the way out. A veil was pinned in the hair of our false-bride. A wedding was quickly organized. The groom, a handsome commercial pilot, was thrilled about the upcoming nuptials. The wedding would be a small, romantic affair on New Year’s Eve. Just family and a few close friends, but held in a beautiful old church with an elegant reception to follow.

The “bridesmaids” were each armed with information about the groom, the wedding, and the bride’s favorite things. When this ragtag non-wedding wedding party arrived at the bar, we marched straight into the karaoke room, grabbed a few song books, and began to fill up the song sheets.

Before we knew it, heartfelt dedications were going out to the happy couple and their future. Drinks were being downed at an alarming rate and the “Never Have I Ever” confessions began bringing blushes in the most old fashioned of the group. (Ok, so that would be basically just me, but I blushed!)

A few hours later, with everyone drunk, dizzy, and delighted, we arranged for a ride home from the bar, afraid that the seven blocks might just be too much for us in our current condition. We made it safely home, picked up a few cute guys (as is necessary for any good bachelorette party—remember, ladies that just because the bride is off the market doesn’t mean you shouldn’t all enjoy the chance to look for love yourself!), and spent the next few hours talking about a variety of subjects ranging from inappropriate to bawdy and a little touch of “awww” thrown in for good measure.

The next morning, through a fog of hangovers and headaches, we pieced the night together. Between a few sober(ish) memories and the miracle of the digital camera, soon most of the night was put together. As the bridal party slowly made their way to the shower, one sloooow and painful step at a time, I threw together a fairly nice brunch from the fondue leftovers. (Ahem, say hello to a French Toast bread pudding with white chocolate, cranberry, and a touch of caramel sauce; home fried fingerling potatoes with broccoli; and an apple, pear, and orange fruit salad with lemon curd.)

All things considered, I was pretty impressed with the event. In fact, of all the fake bachelorette parties I’ve ever thrown, this may be my favorite. After all, we started with an elegant and fun dinner, we bonded with our shared mascara and dash to accessorize, we sang our hearts out and hit several group acts giving full honor to Cyndi Lauper and the other sirens of 80’s Girl Power, and we still managed to work in two boys and a brunch. Not a bad showing.

While it wasn’t exactly the same as an elegant bridal shower, I’d like to think that in some small way I’ve reached a karmic MoH balance. Anyone else in the mood to not get married?

Still, this is one of my favorite times of year and we should make the effort to enjoy it.  I’ve decorated my Christmas tree; I’ve made a wreath; I’ve covered my house in gingerbread men. 

I’m working on getting my gifts wrapped and under the tree (which is a bit silly given that I’m transporting them all tomorrow anyway).  At least they’ve all been purchased now.  I’ve delivered most of my baked treats and tonight I am finishing up a baked surprise for my sister. 

I’ve watched Nightmare Before Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the animated version), The Bishop’s Wife, and In The Good Old Summertime (yes, it really is a sort of Christmas movie) and I’m half-way finished with White Christmas.  I’ve listened to Alvin and the Chipmunks, lots and lots of Frank Sinatra, Harry Connick Junior, Bing Crosby, and sundry others.

I’ve worn jingle bell earrings, a Santa hat, my Christmas necklace, and some very fun holiday socks.  I’ve been in two holiday shows and I’ve spent a large amount of money on decorations.  Oh, and I even mailed out a good portion of my cards. That’s pretty Christmasy, don’t you think?

It’s been an interesting holiday season.  I’m not feeling as Christmasy as I usually do and there’s no explaining why.  I hope that tomorrow I will wake up as full of the spirit as I usually do.  Christmas Eve is actually far more fun for me than Christmas.  You get all of the family and food and drinks without the drama of presents.  People are in a better mood because the bulk of the stress is over.  The tree is still lovely and full of gifts without the torn paper every where.  The tummy aches haven’t even started yet.  It’s a good day.

So with that I wish you a Merry Christmas Eve Eve.  I hope tomorrow and Christmas are wondrous and beautiful.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

I just learned that a coworker of mine has passed away.  I did not know her exceptionally well, but I was very fond of her.  She had a love of beaded jewelry and I knew that she admired some of the things I’d worn as I admired some of the things she wore.  We’d chat in the halls or if we met in the copier room. 

During a large meeting in October someone mocked me for my support of Obama.  She leaned in to whisper, “We’re sisters.”  After that I learned that she was a closeted supporter of Obama who didn’t want the world to know she was liberal.  We would exchange conspiratorial winks in the hallway and I’d slip Obama-gear under her office door.  The day after the election I brought her one of the cookies I’d made for my volunteers and she hugged me.

She said through the tears in her eyes that she was glad she’d seen this moment.  It was a gift from God for America to see such movement and grace of the people of this nation.  She spoke of her dreams of Obama bringing America into “the light.”  To hear her talk about the victory was moving to say the least.  We bonded during the election. 

In my job I primarily spend my day in a cube looking at a computer screen or staring at papers on my desk.  It wasn’t often I had the chance to swing by her desk and say hello.

A few days before Thanksgiving we learned that she went to the hospital for what she thought was kidney stones only to learn that she had liver and esophageal cancer.  She was optimistic that with aggressive chemo therapy she would be back to work soon.  That was three weeks ago.  Today she passed away before ever reaching her first round of therapy. 

I wish I had known her better.  I wish she had lived to see the inauguration.  I wish she was alive and well.  I wish a lot of things right now. 

Today I received a lovely Christmas card from my grandfather.  It was a very sweet gesture and he’ll be receiving a thank you from me very shortly.  Even though my grandma passed away more than a year ago, not seeing her name on the card is a shock.  Perhaps it was the combination of the card and the passing in one day, but I’m suddenly overwhelmed with missing her very, very much.

Eventually I will put up my posting on Christmas decorations and the joy of the season and the perfect popcorn-to-cranberry ratio necessary for a lovely Christmas tree.  Today, however, I felt the need to say that I was saddened.  This brings up more hurt than I was prepared for and frankly, I want nothing more than to go home right now and go to sleep. 

My prayers and sympathy go out to her family and to all those that knew her. 

This weekend, as I was enjoying some time with my politically polarized family (about 3-McCain, 3-Obama, 2-Undecided), I heard the word “celebrity” over and over again in connection to my stance on Barack Obama:  “You’ve been taken in by his celebrity”;  “You’re just part of the Hollywood generation that loves celebrity”; etc.  I have to admit that it began to annoy me.   

For some reason, my support of Obama is often dismissed as the dewy-eyed optimism of a “fan” who hasn’t taken the time to look into the reality of the candidates. 

I confess that when the election first began, I intended to vote for Obama before I knew all the details of either candidate.  That had nothing to do with celebrity and everything to do with the fact that after 8 disastrous years under the Bush administration, I would have voted for anyone wearing a democrat button.  Have donkey, will travel.

While voting across party lines may not be the wisest move, it was my initial goal.  Over the past several weeks, however, my plan to vote has not changed but my rationale has. 

I’ve read through Web sites.  I’ve done comparisons and contrasts.  I’ve studied plans for the economy and for the environment.  I’ve read the articles and researched the sound bytes.  I’ve spent the time to learn who and what Barack Obama stands for and what he can offer the country. 

Meanwhile, the McCain/Palin ticket has run a campaign based on smearing Obama, downplaying his successes, and their largest bump in the polls came from pulling Sarah Palin out of someone’s hat at the RNC.  Her entire success as a candidate has been in her shock value and has nothing to do with her viability as the potential president, which most people (including several high ranking conservative Republicans) have questioned.  If there is an issue of a ticket running on the fumes of celebrity, it’s not Obama/Biden. 

Whatever your politics, it is important to acknowledge that in today’s digital world in which we have access to news the moment it happens, we’re going to be more involved in the election than ever before.  There will be more articles, more commercials, more information.  We can have information about both candidates sent to our cell phones while we’re in line for the bathroom.  And anyone who is on television over and over in commercials starts to seem like a celebrity.  Interesting that no one accuses McCain or Palin of celebrity status, though. 

Here is my issue.  If you disagree with Barack Obama, then argue his politics.  Do not attempt to discredit my support by sweeping my efforts under the rug of “celebrity.”  I am not a political scholar, an economist, or an Ivy league graduate.  I am an average American who will be drastically affected by the election.  My job will be adjusted, my tax break will be changed, my ability to pay my bills and heat my home will be altered.  For those of you in my shoes, the election is about us.  We are the ones who will decide the next president and we are the ones who will be the most affected by the nations’ decision.  It is essential that we know the details and truth about the candidates. 

Vote.  Know who and what your candidate stands for when you walk into the booth, but vote.  Remember that your informed decision is the single greatest political resource you have.

Pro-bama ‘08!

I have since realized that it was inappropriate of me to do so and as such have removed that post.  While I disagree with much of what he had to say, he wasn’t saying it to me and it wasn’t my place to respond, particularly in so public a way. 

I will reiterate from the earlier posting that I believe it is essential to know who and why we vote.  Know what the candidates believe in, what they stand for, and how they hope to change the country. 

To do this, it is important to enter into open, honest, respectful debates about the issues.  While tempers may rise and opinions may become heated, it is also important to be respectful of those whose views and beliefs differ from our own.  We are fortunate to live in a country where we are encouraged to question the established governmental system and may actively and loudly challenge the status quo.  Let’s not abuse that privilege by disrespecting someone else’s right to speak out.

 Pro-bama ‘08!

There is one tiny snag, however.  This birthday sees me turning 26.  As my older sister points out, this means that I have finished 26 years of life and I am now on my way to my 27th.  As the rocker drummer, Steve, pointed out last night, this means I have more than turned the quarter of a century mark.  And as countless other people have mentioned, I am now on the “downhill slope” towards 30.

First of all, let me respond to that accusation with a heartfelt, “BITE ME.”  Now that’s out of the way, we can discuss it like adults. 

Yes, I am closer to 30 than I was yesterday.  Such is the nature of aging.  It is not exactly a stagnant activity.  Unless you possess the skill to remain at the same age year upon year, you will age a little every day.  I have yet to hit a point where I feel it necessary to pick an age and stay there.  I may not be a huge fan of aging, but I’ve learned some important things in my 26th year that I hope to take into this 27th round.

Last year saw lots of changes and some improvements.  I had my first by-myself vacation.  I did three plays and joined a dinner theater group.  I left a job I hated and moved into one where I actually make decent money for the first time.  I had a summer romance, a bit of a heartbreak, some awkward first dates.  I’ve met some cool people and done lots of karaoke.

I’ve decided my feeling is this: Ok, so I’m on a downhill slope.  When you are headed downhill you pick up momentum, right?  You go faster and faster until you are hurling towards your destination.  When we were kids we’d trudge up the hill to reach the top just so that we could experience that glorious freedom of sliding downhill.  It was a reward after the hard work. 

Every year I move closer to the ultimate goal of who I want to be.  If being downhill means picking up speed towards that objective, then I’m ok with it.  Let’s grab the sides, close our eyes, and hang on for dear life.  This is the only ride we get.

“Any man can be a father.  It takes someone special to be a dad.”  ~Author Unknown

 - I have a pretty terrific dad if I do say so myself.

“A father carries pictures where his money used to be.”  ~Author Unknown

 - And with six kids and now the addition of the grandbabies, it’s a wonder he has room for anything else in that wallet of his.

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”  ~Mark Twain, “Old Times on the Mississippi” Atlantic Monthly, 1874

 - Isn’t it funny how much parents learn as we age?

“It is a wise father who knows his own child.” -William Shakespeare

 - He’s still learning as are we.  It’s nice to be going through it together.

 ”I never got along with dad.  Kids used to come up to me and say, ‘My dad can beat up your dad.’  I’d say, ‘Yeah? When?’” – Bill Hicks

 - My dad was kind enough to participate in a field day event while I was in the second grade.  I was in a scripted fight with the daughter of our PE teacher.  She and I jumped up in the event and began arguing about whose dad was better than the other.  My dad was willing to come out onto the gym floor, stand behind me as I sat on my little scooter, and then push me up and down the court in a relay race.  He kicked my PE teacher’s ass!

I just wanted to share a few interesting thoughts about dads today.  About my dad in particular.  He rocks.  Happy Father’s Day.

There is one slight issue with the upcoming birth that bothers me.  It’s no secret that my brother had hoped for a son.  Perhaps it’s the desire to see the family line carried on.  Perhaps it was growing up with five sisters that made him crave a family chock full of testosterone.  Perhaps it was just the simple reality that as a man he felt more prepared to deal with the trials of raising another one.

Whatever the reason, upon hearing that he would be having a daughter, he’s begun receiving condolences.  No one is unhappy about adding a little girl to the family, but he has received many comments referring to the disappointment he must be feeling. 

I have issues with this.  I do not feel that any apology is necessary.  In fact, my brother has declared that once he got over the initial “Ah shucks” moment, he’s pleased to be having a daughter.  I feel that by greeting his news with apology, we are implying that there is something fundamentally inferior about having a daughter rather than a son.

I do not intend to list any attributes claiming superiority of one sex over another.  I don’t like to think in those terms.  We’re different and that’s ok.  I like to think that it’s our differences that keep things interesting. 

If I catch anyone else offering sympathies to my brother for his daughter, I may be forced to beat them down.  This little girl will have enough to deal with just from the shock of being born into my family without the added pressure or feeling that she has to live up to a boy who never existed and therefore could do no wrong.

She will be encouraged to be who she is, no matter what that entails.

What happens to a person when they realize they are waiting on death?

I’m learning that death is not glamorous. It’s not romantic. It’s not beautiful. It’s just death. It’s watching someone you love slip away and turn into someone else.

One night I sat at my computer to write a flowing, heart wrenching piece on the pain of loss and the reality of death. I’ve spent more than my fair amount of time in hospitals, surrounded by the dead and dying, the smell of cleanser and latex gloves permanently imbedded in my memory. But death of those I love, that’s a relatively new thing.

Two of my sisters were in a car accident three years ago and I remember how close we came to losing one of them. She was severely injured and had to be air lifted to the nearest hospital. They told us that she’d be lucky to make it through the night, let alone live out the week. For four days in the ICU she was watched over by one person or another. No one wanted to leave her side and we rotated shifts so that parents and siblings and grandparents could try to sneak in a nap away from the sound of her heart monitor.

On my night shift, I helped the pretty nurse with long red hair give my sister a sponge bath. She was still covered in blood and her hair was matted to her head in dark patches. By now she’d been in the hospital for three days and she was in and out of consciousness. She saw my Nana who’d passed away seven years earlier. She cried out that someone was sitting on her chest. She hated the nurses and she didn’t know who the rest of us were. That night I tried to doze in an elaborate construction of chairs pieced together to be long enough for my legs to stretch out. I had begun to nod off when my sister’s terror filled cry shot me straight out of my makeshift cot. She began crying, “I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying.” She was thrashing around in her bed and visions of ripped tubes and broken needles ran through my mind as I tried to whisper soothing words to her as I rubbed her arm in a futile attempt to remind her that there were people who needed her here.

The pretty nurse with long red hair came running into the room. She took my sister’s hand and said calmly, “You’re not dying, but there are people here who are and you need to respect them.” Somehow that reached my sister and she slowed her thrashing to a few twitches and finally stopped altogether and fell into a quiet sleep. A few minutes later I heard the sound of a monitor flat line and saw the nursing staff rush across the hall. I recognized the noise from the years of ER I’d watched religiously. The night of the accident, I was across town with another sister at the hospital and I heard the flat line of a heart monitor for the first time in person. They wheeled my sister, covered in the other’s blood, out of the room for an X-ray and my mother and I heard the beep, heard a woman shout “Code Blue to X-ray” and the world stopped for a moment. A nurse came running in to tell us that we shouldn’t panic because it wasn’t our X-ray with the code blue. There’s no feeling like the guilt of the relief that the dying person doesn’t belong to you. A second later I heard a man scream. It was the worst sound I have ever heard. His wife died on the way to the X-ray. And as his wife died, I almost wept with the relief that it wasn’t my sister.

And the night I spent in the hospital I heard that beep again and I steeled myself for the pain of the guilt and the wash of relief that I could feel my sister’s pulse as I held her arm. And it came a few moments later. I never fell back to sleep and my sister had no memory of her outburst the next day or ever.

So I thought I knew death. I’d been next to it and I’d seen it bring a grown man to the floor and I was prepared for it. My sister recovered and a month later came home from the hospital. We had some scares after she came home, but she was alive. So I was going to be stronger than death and learn not to let it stop me.

No one told Death about that arrangement. Two years later my grandmother got sick. And kept getting sicker and sicker every day and every day we all joked that she was looking for attention or that now she’d have to slow down and organize the bookshelves in the basement after all this time. When we weren’t laughing, we were organizing. We were making travel arrangements and researching illnesses and cures and treatments. We could stop Death with enough planning. We just had to stay focused.

Months went by and they told us that she would have six months to a year and that we needed to begin to brace ourselves for goodbye. I was busy. I was in a play and I was at work and I was heading off to a conference and I somehow managed to squeeze my grandmother’s imminent death into my schedule. I loaded into a car with a friend and a stolen license plate and drove twelve hours to get lost in Tonganoxie, Kansas before spending just under 36 hours with a woman who hardly knew me before piling back into the car and driving back. The thing about driving through Kansas is that you have time to think. That’s about all you can do unless your idea of a rocking good time is counting how many Jesus billboards there are in ratio to the size of the wheat fields. So I thought about Death and my grandmother and my sister and I thought that I could accept it this time. It wasn’t coming with a flat beep but with the gradual slipping away of a woman whose grip had never slipped before. I don’t know when I accepted it, but I think somewhere between washing my windshield near Abeline and swinging through Starbucks in Colby, I decided that if my grandmother was as tired as she looked and as sick as she seemed, then maybe this time I wouldn’t fight death.

Through my meager twenty four years, my grandmother and I have discussed many things. I’ve talked to her about God and monsters under the bed and the beauty of Frank Sinatra and the power of positive thinking and the inevitability of death and the joy of heaven and how to make a good martini. She never seemed afraid of anything. Even of admitting when something scared her. She’d square her tiny shoulders and she seemed to grow bigger and broader when she needed the face something unpleasant. But the thing that always impressed me was how rarely she found things unpleasant. This woman could find beauty in a broken egg shell. She’d point out the purity of the white or the softness of the brown from an egg newly lain. She’d give a discourse on the strength and multifunctional uses of eggs in every meal and as valuable mulch for her garden. Nothing was too terrible if you looked at it from the right angle.

So it was with death. I was 13 the first time I can remember talking to her about what death might be like. There are a lot of things about that conversation I wish I could remember. What I do remember is that she laughed and told me that she wanted to hear “Joy to the World” played at her funeral. She told me that the lyrics in that Christmas carol expressed her ideas of what death could be like. “The Lord has come. Let Earth receive her King.” She explained that death just meant that the Lord was coming to take you home and how could that be scary or unpleasant? She wanted that song because she wanted those left behind to be reminded that death was a cause of celebration of the life of the person who had passed.

Now as she lies in a hospital bed in what used to be the guest room of the house she’s lived in for over forty years, I wonder if anyone around her is feeling joyful. She rarely wakes up anymore. Her breathing stops and starts. My grandfather is too tired to sleep and my mother has forgotten any reality but this. I wonder how she will remember her mother after so many weeks of watching her sleep. Will she hold on to the memory of a woman with the strength of tigers or will that be eclipsed by the fragile looking doll of a woman wrapped in white blankets?

And now we wait. The six months to one year quickly became six to nine months. Two weeks. You have a few days left. No one wants to leave for the fear that she’ll pass alone. Our fear. Not hers. She was never afraid to die alone because she never saw it as being alone. It was a trip with a dear friend, not a hike into the great unknown. And so we wait. Work is on hold. Relationships stagnate because we’re too afraid to make plans, just in case there’s an emergency. We need to put everything else aside as we wait to start the mourning process.

I can’t do that. It seems to dishonor the woman she was. She loved affection. Hugs, kisses, hand holding and sitting close together. She loved laughter and word games and cards and music and feeding birds and eating popcorn. She loved reading and opera and theater and philosophy. She dreamt big and encouraged the rest of us to do that. As my sister relearned to walk with hip held together by pins and plates, my grandmother would accept “I don’t want to. I hate this. It hurts,” but never “I can’t.” When we wanted our lives to stop to be with my sister in the hospital, she sent us home. If we couldn’t help, then we should be doing something constructive. She wanted us to live our lives to the best of our ability. She lived by example and held onto her zeal for life as long as possible. And what makes me sad, more than losing her to cancer, more than seeing her slip away from us, more than knowing that my children will never know her and she’ll never see me married, more than that, I’m sad to know that the things she tried to teach us our whole lives are being forgotten now when we need them the most. Now that we should be thinking about planting flowers for the spring and buying bird seed and hanging clothes on the line because they smell better that way, instead were waiting in the dark for Death to sneak in. This is not who she would want to be now.

Death hurts the living. Those who leave don’t hurt. They get to sleep. Quietly and without bad dreams and lumpy mattresses and alarms that go off just as you’re finally comfortable. We are the ones who hurt and we are the ones who stay up at night thinking about what should have been different. And I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to feel guilty knowing that I lost the memories of who she is because of what has happened to her.

I won’t let Death win. If death creeps in, then I’ll hold to what I was taught and I’ll honor her by living my life. I’ll cry, I’ll miss her, and I’ll keep her alive by living as she taught me.