Our immortal beloved

I lived with my grandparents, Don and Lu, through my freshman year of college. I was lucky to have the opportunity although you never realize it at the time. It's somewhat unconventional for grandkids to move back home, but in some ways, living with them was just a foot out of my home. It made that abrupt transition smoother, smaller.

My grandparents -- who by the point had raised six functioning adults -- were unfazed by my post-high school drama. They introduced me to a slower, easier life. Reading dinners, Royal's baseball mania, sitting on the porch glider smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee at all hours of the day. The only time I remember actually upsetting them -- or rather her -- involved my bathroom ettiquette. Or lack thereof. Even then, grandpa pulled me aside and said, "No. 1. Come here. Your left the bathroom a mess. It pisses your grandma off to clean up after you. Don' t do it again, or next time she'll kill you."

Well played, granny, well played. My spotless bathroom is a testament to her lessons.

My granddad passed away before I graduated. My granny passed away this week. There wasn't enough time with either of them, by the end.

Granny succumbed to Alzheimers ... slowly, painstakingly, horrifically. The body cannot live without the mind but the slow atrophy of her brain left her body lively for a long time. You cannot reconcile the grandma in form who no longer follows in function. The same woman who cried, laughed and danced at my wedding, who held my son and shared her favorite books, no longer recognized me by the time of my divorce.

I set these past few years on a shelf in my mind. She was not the granny I knew, even as I watched her smile and play with my ball of fire. Those three years will not define her. She influenced three generations. Her life reverberates in myslef, and my family. She is eternal, immortal, but most of all, never forgotten.