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For my mother on her birthday. I love you

Much like tonight, I also had a cold that night.  We sat in my grandmother’s room at her retirement home.  She liked it there.  She had friends- smoke break buddies, a lunch table group, nextdoor neighbors. 

Nanny had been sick for over a year with cancer.  I still remember lying in my bed as my mother told me over the phone that Nanny had cancer.  I remember not knowing what to do.  Do I cry?  She is still here though.

We had over a year to prepare ourselves.  We knew she wasn’t going to beat it.

We had watched American Idol that night at the retirement home.  I didn’t feel good.  As Nanny hugged me goodnight she kissed my forehead.  “Mary Kendall, you feel like you have fever.”  I can still hear the way she would say my name.  Only she could say it just so.  She instructed me to go home and take care of myself.  We said our “love you’s” and I went home.  That was the last time I saw her or spoke to her when she was conscious.

Three days later I would see her in the hospital.  She was so sick.  A week would pass before she left us.  I was there in the room when she passed.  I don’t remember a lot about that time in the hospital.  I do remember however how concerned she was about me and my little cold.  A woman who was eaten up by cancer but was so concerned for me.  The last real time I saw her.  A precious and perfect memory.

I am the first-born grandchild on that side of the family.  My nanny kept me when I was a baby.  We had a special bond that just can’t be explained.  Strange how someone can be gone for five years now and not a week goes by I don’t think about her and miss her.