Just Like Grandma

Anyone who knows me knows how incredibly much my Grandma means to me. She left this life last year, and I still feel her absence as acutely as I did when she died. I remember sitting at her funeral, staring at her, wishing that I could will her to get up out of that casket. She looked like she was only sleeping. It would have been just like my Grandma to play a joke like that. Make us think she was dead, only to pop up in our face and yell "BOO!"

Just get up, Grandma. Please.

I knew it was a ridiculous idea. But that's the way my Grandma was. It was really hard to believe that she was really gone, that she really wouldn't get up again. That she wouldn't squeeze my hand with more power than an eighty-something year old woman should possess. She wouldn't smile in that Grandma way and make that sound like she was stuttering over her words "Uhb Uhb Uhb..." before she said something silly.

I loved you for being my silly, playful Grandma.

I had almost forgotten those funny Grandma sounds until a few days ago. My 7 1/2 year old daughter was talking, and suddenly, in the middle of her sentence, she did it. "Uhb Uhb Uhb..."

JUST LIKE GRANDMA.

It was as if Grandma had gotten up and walked into my house and spoken to me through my daughter. Or maybe God just made sure that my girl got that one special gene from her that would make her say that phrase just like Grandma said it just for my sake. So I would know that she's not really gone. She's still around. Not only is she with the Lord, with her one true love Grandpa - waiting for me and everyone else to join the party - but she's here. She's in my mom. She's in my aunt and my cousins and my sisters and all of our children. And those little things that made her our special little Grandma were passed on, so we could remember her. Even when she's not here to talk to anymore.

I miss you, Grandma. But I'm glad you left quite a few little parts of yourself here. I can't wait to see you again.

The picture captures the moment that I introduced my firstborn daughter to my Grandma.