Ten years...

Ten years ago this evening, Nana died.

My thoughts are often about her. Among the questions I have is whether I did all I could for her.

She moved to Tucson in July 1985, leaving behind friends who revered her, and a house full of all sorts of things that had accumulated over 31 years, and all sorts of other things that had been crammed into it when they first moved there when I was 11.

So she arrived to join us in Tucson in Summer 1985 with a moving truck full, the subset of possessions with which she filled her new condo.

She immediately took up grandmothering, driving kids to school, serving in its little library, eating supper with us, taking the kids to the pool where she lived.

She had 3 1/2 good years, and then she got sick. Surgery left her blind. Her driving, reading, and knitting days all came to an end at once. She was in and out of facilities - PT, nursing home, group home - and then came to roost at a good group home not far from our house. And it was there she died.

I could recount the circumstances, but it wouldn't make any difference. She did die. I didn't expect it, since she had been about to die so many times before. And this time, instead of falling on her head, or losing a function during surgery, or going into insulin shock, or having a stroke, she got pneumonia and faded away.

She always had said that pneumonia was the best friend of the elderly. All four of her grandparents had died of it, all around age 50, all around 1900. And she was far more elderly than they.

It may have been her friend, too. I don't know. I just miss her.

By now, 10 years later, she would have been almost 98, and would certainly be gone. So I would be missing her anyway. But it still doesn't seem right that she faded away when she did.

But what is a librarian without books? Maybe the time had come.

But, Mother, I still miss you. Love, RM