About a year ago, something pretty terrible happened. My grandmother (we called her Maw-maw) passed away. It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t very peaceful, and when it finally happened, it was the weirdest combination of pain and relief I had ever felt in my life. I’ve tried to sum up Maw-maw quite a few times. Sometimes when I’m talking to other people about her, sometimes just to myself, but I’ve never really felt like I did her justice. She was a lot of things. She was loving, thoughtful, kind, tough, stubborn, old fashioned, funny, and brave- my favorite person in the world. That doesn’t seem like enough, though. She was so much more than that. She was a safe haven, she was unconditional love, she was home, she was the voice inside my head helping me to do the right thing, she was my absolute favorite person. Did I mention she was my favorite person? Because she was my favorite. It’s kind of morbid to think about someone you love dying, but nevertheless it was something that had crossed my mind before. When I was a freshman in high school I had an English teacher who taught a lesson on realizing our own mortality. It sounds pretty bleak, but he was right. Realizing that you’re going to die- that the people you love are going to die- is something that will happen eventually so we might as well tie that shit into A Separate Peace or Of Mice and Men while we’re on the subject. So, the thought had occurred to me before. I knew she wasn’t going to live forever. I knew I wasn’t going to live forever (unless my science experiments went better than expected) and I knew that I was going to have to find a way to deal with the loss of the best person I knew, eventually.

Watching someone die is probably the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. Feeling like you are completely helpless, that there’s nothing you can do to stop this or slow it down or make it different, while also realizing that you’re never going to see someone again is a pretty good way to remind yourself that even though it can be pretty awesome sometimes, life can also drop kick you in the face at any given moment and you just have to figure out how to get through it. Watching Maw-maw die, even though I knew it would happen at some point, was the thing I had dreaded the most in the world. It was something I was never, ever going to be prepared for. It was going to suck, and it was going to be hard, and it was going to hurt. And it did. It was the worst. I know everyone thinks their grandparents are great (and I’m sure they are) but my Maw-maw, our grandmother was different. She was literally the backbone of our family (by literally, I mean figuratively, this is not a post about an actual giant bone holding my family together). She was the moral compass, the caretaker, the glue that held us together. She lost two of her daughters to cancer and yet somehow she got up every single day and she continued to take care of all us, even though she must have been in so much pain. I have a sister and two cousins and she was our Mom. My cousins lost their mother, and my sister and I have never had a great relationship with ours, but for me, at least, it didn’t seem as hard because I had Maw-maw.

When I was 16 years old, my grandparents took my cousins Jesse and Jeremie and me on vacation to Lake George. Jesse was nine and Jeremie was seven and they took us to an amusement park. Absolutely none of us, under no circumstances, were allowed to go on rides that went up in the air. If it left the ground, it was restricted. Approximately 99% of the rides left the ground. We spent a lot of time on the carousel that day. A few years later, when I was about 22 and Jesse was 15 we were hanging out at our grandparents’ house with our great aunt. It had rained a lot the past few days and the driveway and the yard were really muddy. My aunt was going to leave and when she went to turn around she got stuck in the mud. Jesse and I went out to help push the car and get it un-stuck, and Maw-maw was absolutely not having it. She came outside with a blanket to put under the wheel and very politely, very forcefully, asked us to please go back in the house because she didn’t want us to get hurt. My 5’2″ 90lb grandmother proceeded to try to push that car, all by herself, out of the mud while we watched from the safety of the porch. She almost did it, too. Luckily a neighbor came over and helped, but I’m pretty sure she would have gotten it out on her own eventually.

Every year for my entire life, and I’m sure way before that, Christmas was a really big deal for Maw-maw and Paw-paw. My sister, who is an actual saint (by actual I mean figuratively, I have hyperbole issues), would take Maw-maw shopping every year to pick out all of our presents. It did not matter how old we were, or that we did’t really need anything, or that my grandparents didn’t have a lot of money. Everyone got an even, fair amount of presents, and it was always a ton of presents. This sounds sweet, right? How lovely! You’re right, it was great. I’m not going to lie, the small child in me freaking loved it. However, this meant hours and hours of agonized shopping. My sister would walk back and forth through the mall for hours, on several different occasions each year, waiting for Maw-maw to pick just the right sweatshirt, or pajamas, or necklace. Everything had to be perfect and every decision was meaningful. Aside from that seeming like way too much effort (sorry future grandchildren! Grandma’s lazy and thinks you should be happy with your gift card wrapped in a plastic Wal-Mart bag), it was a really good example of how she treated all of us every day. Everything she did, said, even thought, meant something. She treated us with such care and love and understanding our entire lives. We were all special and that is so important when you’re a kid, or 18, or 30 and you feel like you just need one person to love you even though you’ve made 85 terrible decisions in under 24 hours, or you got your heart broken, or you just feel unlovable.

So about a year ago, Maw-maw slowly got sick, then she got worse really fast. Then she died. The thing I was most scared of was real and it was pretty fucking terrible. It wasn’t so bad at first. There were lots of things to do. We had a funeral to plan and a house to clean and people to notify. My sister and I even had a couple of really funny moments together while it was all happening. We spent about an hour stress  induced and sleep deprived zombie shopping at Costco (after I accidentally led her to the Costco loading zone because parking lots were beyond my comprehension that day) and we giggled and were silly and got to be somewhere where no one knew we were sad or that the worst thing had happened. We got to look through old pictures and crack jokes about what a crazy kid I was and what a tiny little adult she had always been and remember how we were both definitely pro-overalls as children.

The worst part about losing someone you love is how it feels after all the stuff is over with and you have to be a real person with a job and friends again. How can everyone else be normal when the world just ended? After a year it’s easier. It’s less sad and nicer to think about the time Maw-maw convinced our cousins that her car had rolled away so she was just going to steal the first minivan she saw in the parking lot (which happened to be her new car). It feels good to think about how she started a pick-up game of wiffle ball on my 21st birthday with kids in the neighborhood. It makes me smile to think about my grandparents dancing together at my wedding. She was my favorite person and I’ll miss her every day.