One year ago . . .

today I received a phone call from my cousin.  JL called to say that our grandmother had passed out in her bedroom.  The paramedics were unable to revive her, so they put her on life support (which is standard procedure in an emergency, but not something my grandmother would have wanted done).  As a result of being deprived of oxygen, she was declared brain dead sometime the next day.  My aunts, my uncle, and my mother then debated when to take her off of life support, a decision my grandfather wanted no part of and one that was legally my youngest aunt's to make, as she had medical power of attorney for my grandmother.  They finally agreed to give everyone a chance to get to Gram, and two nights after she first passed out, my grandmother was taken off of life support.  She died five hours later, never regaining consciousness. 

My grandmother was a difficult lady.  She was determined, proud, intelligent, confident, and honest.  She didn't mince words, especially not with her daughters or her granddaughters.  She openly questioned my desire to get my doctorate, telling me right after Archer got his, "Why do you need to continue with your studies?  He has a degree.  You don't need one too."  But, as I learned at her funeral, she was also incredibly proud of "her girls," as she apparently referred to me, my sister, and our two female cousins.  Over and over again, people we had not seen in years came up to each of us and told us how much she talked about us.  My sister, for example, had no idea how brave my grandmother thought she was to end her marriage to her first husband and to parent her two children alone.  My cousin, who dropped out of college and worked her way up through retail management to run her own store, had no idea that my grandmother admired the way she stood up to her parents when she refused to go back to college.  I had no clue that my grandmother was proud of all that I'd accomplished or that she'd told people, "My M, she's smarter than I'll ever be."  I know we all wish we had known some of this while she was still alive, but that was Gram.  You didn't know something until she was ready to tell you.