missing vera « Letters from Grenada

missing vera

It has been a year and eight days since my Grandma passed away.

I miss her. A lot.

She lived the last 3+ years of her life in Grenada. She was pretty senile, and I got the sense that everything – the weather, the people, the view from her verandah – seemed to her like a beautiful dream. I’m proud of the fact that my mother and I were able to grant her one wish-> That her last moments would be spent at home, not in a hospital or a nursing home. She had Parkinson’s, which is an ugly, greedy disease, but her passing was comfortable and dignified.

She adored Bean, her first and only great grandchild*. I have a hundred stories about how cute they were together. Like, for example, how they had matching sippy cups. This is my favorite photo of the two of them and it kinds of sums up they way they were. Bean, less than two years old at the time, was such a little gentleman. See how he’s holding her hand and helping her navigate the step up to the kitchen. So sweet.

(*One of my cousins had a baby shortly after Grandma passed.)