After posting on the holiday recipe thread, I got pretty sad. I miss my grandmother. She died in 2005 and was the only one that I ever knew as my dad's mom died when I was a year and 1/2 old. My dad's father died the month before I was born. So my mom's parents were all I had.

My grandmother and I were very close. The last time she went into the hospital, she patted my face and told me, while she was crying, that I didn't know what it really meant to love somebody so much that it hurt--and that's how she loved me. Two nights later she went into a coma and she died the next morning.

I haven't been back to her grave yet. It's like not being there makes it not real but I know it is. And I feel bad, too, because I wasn't there as much as I should have been when she was in the nursing home. My grandmother had gotten dementia and while she knew me, she didn't have her memories--she wasn't my grandmother anymore. She was someone else with my grandmother's face and voice. That made it easier when she died as I'd already "buried" my grandmother. But I still miss her.

Her birthday was the day after Christmas. The "armpit of the year" as she would say to have a birthday. But she always had family together for her birthday, which I think was truly a great gift.

Anyway, I'm getting maudlin.

Here's to all those we miss--family and friends alike. To all our happy memories and to those that bring back strong feelings of love and tears of sorrow at the tug it puts on our hearts to not have them in our lives.