womzilla | This whole "death" thing, I didn't vote for it and I don't approve

I don't think I've mentioned here that my mother's mother, mi Abuelita, died last month at the age of 96. She was born before Gallipoli, before tanks, before antibiotics, before the US had any immigration laws, in Havana before the communists controlled any country in the world. She lived through, and above, the most genocidal and the most productive century in human history so far, and managed throughout always to believe, sincerely, that things were looking up.

In late May, when Abuelita was in the hospital, I wanted to send her a get-well bear, and I called the hospital gift shop to arrange it. The woman on the phone asked me the patient's name, and when I said "Elita Crow", she exclaimed with delight, "Oh, Elita! We're all rooting for her!" That summed her up as well as any sentence could. Everyone was rooting for her because she was rooting for everyone.

From her I learned two lessons: love the things you love without shame or hesitation, and whatever you do, do with energy and joy. Oh, and 500 Rummy. That served me well, too.

It gives me pleasure, and hope, to think of her, now, smoking with lungs incorruptible, drinking with a liver invulnerable, and laughing, dancing, loving everything and everyone with a heart unceasing and eternal.

I mention this today in memory not just of her, of course. She and Tim had a tempestuous relationship (even more so than she and I did) but I know that the last time they saw each other, they were happy in each others' company as family, really, should be. Let's all be, when we can.