My grandmother died this morning. It was more expected than my aunt's death, but the timing of all these recent traumatic events has definitely been a shock and my immune system has taken a long vacation from the rest of me. At the risk of sounding like those idiots who say things like, "God has another angel now," or "She always had a smile on her face," (Really? Always? And no one committed her?), I want to say that my grandmother was, and probably always will be, the best person I ever knew. She based every decision, even the tiny ones, on her moral/ethical code and never wavered from it. She had a great sense of humor and absurdity, and it always made her laugh when somebody did something foolish, including herself. She constantly read books until her eyesight got too bad a few years ago, and she was a great painter. She was my biggest fan (though she would have been extremely disappointed at all the profanity on my blog), and the last words she said to me, as I left the nursing home with my uncle and his two dogs to ride to Denver International Airport less than two weeks ago, were: "You're a good-looking man. All your female students are going to have a crush on you." Then she said she wished she was going with me. She spent the majority of her last month listening to spirituals by Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley and telling us all how great we were and how lucky she was to have us. I'm glad she won't have to spend another day in the nursing home. She complained about the patronizing way the employees talked to her, even though she had more on the ball than they did.
My time alone in the cave of despair has been extended for a few more weeks. I can't wait until this blog can be about people who won't take gorilla masks off, how much I hate Louis Black, and how many nachos I can eat in one sitting again.