Well, more bad news – but don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine.

For some reason, this blog is becoming some sort of diary of death. I don’t know why – maybe that’s just what my life is. Moreover, maybe that’s just what life is.

Anyway, my grandma died. It was, by some definitions, sudden. By most definitions, though, she was old, so how sudden could it have been, you know?

The last few years have put me through a bit of a wringer of death, starting around 2017 (especially 2018), and then heating up in the most terrible way by 2020. I struggled in 2020. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I realized it by summer 2021, and then by 2022 I was thinking, “Man, I was really in it”.

The first few were, I’m not gonna lie, tough. They were sudden, but they were also unexpectable in a profoundly tragic way, and some were straight tragic. Recently, they’ve shifted to a more mundane style: people get older, and older people die. It’s a fact of life/death.

By now, I’m practiced. My parent calls me up, I can tell from the tone that the news is going to be sad, it’s someone old, and I think, “OK, I’ve been through this.” It’s not easy, but I make it. I fire up my “mourning” playlist. I tell my friends that I might be a bit down for the next few days (two weeks seems to be a ceiling for the half life), but that I’ll be fine, but that sometimes I think, “Oops, I should’ve told someone”, so that’s why I’m telling them.

I’m honestly laughing as I type this. And no disrespect to my grandma at all. It’s just why do I have an itemized set of things to do? Why do I have a “mourning” playlist?

She had a phenomenal life, as far as I can tell. Her kids are great (I might be biased); her grandkids are great (I’m definitely biased). My cousins are doing well in school, well in life. Her kids went to college, did well, have – I think it’s fair to say – good lives. Are they perfect? No, but whose are? Her husband loved (loves) her. She had a remarkably open mind. If I grew up in a town of 700 and lived there for 95% of my life, I’d’ve probably been a Republican, and I might’ve been a little hateful. She wasn’t. She had a great sense of humor and a loudly proclaimed fear of mice, was a well-liked (deservedly so) educator, and had a whole lot of respect and love for a whole lot of people.

OK, now I’m crying.

Anyway, the thing about death is that it’s partly a celebration of life (in a weird way), and wow was there a lot to celebrate.

OK, I’m crying a lot.

I’m a little worried about my relatives. I know my mom will be fine, I think my dad will be fine. I’m a little uncertain about my sibling, and I have only semi-confidence in some of my cousins and aunts/uncles, and to say I’m not worried about my grandpa would be a lie.

I’m also hopeful that the rest of my family sees this as a celebration. When a young person dies, it’s oh my gosh. There was so much left to do, and they didn’t do it and they didn’t even have the chance to do it. My grandma had the time to do a lot, and more impressively she did a lot.

She could talk like – and I don’t mean this hyperbolically – nobody else. It was an art form. The jumps from topic to topic, then back to a previous topic, the interruption, the self-interruption, and the depth and breadth of the repository of stories and gossip and news and facts and truths and half-truths (but usually said with a bit of a wink, real or implied), and the indifference but sometimes emotion but even moreso quantity with which it was all delivered and absorbed and re-delivered was unlike anything I’ve seen. The world will be a much quieter place without her. (In a sad way, sure, but the world might be a bit glad for the break, too.) She also absolutely loved music – and she was kind of cracked as a pianist, and quite dedicated to and good at singing and the harp. The last one goes along with her self-labeled “eccentricity” (though she was a lot more responsible and grounded than your run-of-the-mill eccentric). Another, disjointed feature: I don’t know that I would’ve pursued science without her. Her place of honor for science and her place of semi-disdain for non-science probably shaped my path a little more than I realized until just now. Her value for education was also unmatched. It was a little funny. During breaks from school, she’d always ask me if I had “more credits under my belt”. Someone who valued education might be expected to ask, “what did you learn?” But for her, it was more like, “can your school quantify your progress, and are you making progress on that axis?” I guess sometimes the grew-up-in-a-small-town-and-stayed-there-always shone through. More often, though, it really didn’t.

Could she have done more? Of course, but who couldn’t? The thing is, she could’ve done a lot less, and she didn’t, and that’s remarkable. She had a grindset, and a commitment to truth, and a lot of kindness. She traveled like crazy. Even though her home base was always the same small slice of the world, she got to see a lot of the rest of it. And she made – I think it’s fair to say – quite the impact in her slice of the world.

To say I won’t miss her would be a lie, but everyone has to go eventually. Would I have rather had her around for longer? Duh. But did we have great times together, and did she do so, so much with her life? Yes – maybe more than I would’ve done. My gosh do I love her.