You Light Up My World Like Nobody Else

Someone around here turned eight.

He is tenderhearted and awesome. Outgoing and shy. Brave and cautious. And promises to live with me forever.

I'm a lucky girl.

As We Sit Alone I Know Someday We Must Go

I believe that people do what they think is best... love the best they can.

I didn't have a spectacular relationship with my grandma. She didn't tech me to sew. Or cook, or garden. We didn't take nature walks, didn't play dress up. At most, she'd hand me a discarded pile of used copy paper and a tin box of blunt crayons.

She did share her secret stash of chocolate chip ice milk, still perfectly squared in a specially-designed tupperwear ice cream container.

And she did have the priest re-bless me every time I stepped foot in her Catholic Church.

My grandma passed away last week, and we buried her on Tuesday. It's been a roller coast of emotions: happy she lived a long life able to watch her nine children and 21 grandchildren grow; heartbroken that she (and I) lost my mom at such a very young age (I was four, my mom 28); sad to be reminded, in pictures, of what an awesome person my grandfather was.

And I'm... mourning. Mourning what was, what could have been; how it all could have played out so drastically different. And I'm not dumb, I know looking at me was painful - oh, so painful - for her, to see her daughter in me and not have her around. No parent should ever experience the loss of a child.

Maybe. How I've hung so many of my life experiences and broken relationships on that little wishful word.

Despite how much I wish everything could have been different, I'm grateful for the time I got to spend with my grandma in this short, short lifetime.