My grandmother's name was Dorothy.  She lived next door to me when I was growing up.  It took about thirty seconds to walk across the farm lane that connected our lots to see her.  She always had oatmeal cookies in a jar and opera on the radio.  She loved the color turquoise and butterflies.  There was a big tapestry of something written in German hanging in the kitchen. I never did understand what it said.

My grandmother was a very important part of my life, especially when my mother got cancer when I was in middle school and early high school.  My grandparents were the rock that I needed when all hell broke loose.  They were the flagship of the family.  We always looked to them to see if we had really hit the rocks yet. As long as they kept sailing, we all knew we'd be okay.

My grandmother developed Alzheimer's disease while I was in college.  I went away with her knowing exactly who I was and who she was, and I returned to find someone who only occasionally recognized me.  She knew her constants, though - my grandfather, who disguised her disease by leaving notes for her - down to when to brush her teeth and who people were - and those in the family that came by every day.  I was off in Iowa City finding myself, and I think I lost her quicker than I would've if I had been next door at home.

She deteriorated over a period of five years.   My grandfather, a metal sculptor who had learned his trade welding airplanes, visited her every day after she went into a nursing home in town.  He kept up with his projects - his art, his parrots, his reading, his religion.  He came to my college graduation and counseled me regarding my move to Chicago.  A little over a year after I arrived in the Windy City, he was killed in a car accident. Poof.  Just like that - gone.  We got a call after he died from the woman who came upon the accident before the authorities arrived.  She said she held him and told him God was with him just before he died.  It makes me feel better to know that - for a long time I thought he'd died alone on the highway.  I was so angry that he was taken away from me, but at the time I didn't look at things from his perspective.  It must've been excruciating to have to watch the love of your life waste away and forget who you were for hours or days at a time.  Maybe it was better he just went in an instant. 

A month later, my grandmother was gone, too.  When they told her that Grandpa was gone, she had clarity.  She stopped eating - I suppose they said she died of starvation - but I know that she died of a broken heart.  The flagship was gone.

Last night I read an article in my hometown newspaper that my mother sent me about my grandmother.  The reporter had interviewed my aunt and uncle about Grandma.  Reading my aunt's interpretation of my grandparents' tragic love story brought back all the memories. 

It's hard to watch life cycle by.  Sometimes I think Grandma would've known what to do when the little angel won't sleep.  Sometimes I try to imagine the advice Grandpa would give me now about marriage and motherhood.  I always went to him for advice. We'd sit at the kitchen table and look out the window at the goldfinches in the feeder.  He had a way with birds, an old grizzled Snow White attracting the woodland animals.   It is difficult for me to realize my own parents are grandparents now. I resist change.  I vascillate between fearing the role of adult and embracing it.  I wish someone could tell me exactly what to do and it would work, yet I cherish the right to make my own decisions.

I miss my grandparents a lot.  They died in 1998, but it seems like yesterday when I see a butterfly or metal sculpture.  I was thinking about that this morning as I held the little angel, who just learned to say the word "butterfly."  If life hadn't changed and charged forward - despite me - she would never have been born.  For her, I know I have to accept forward motion.  If I don't, she won't get her own angels.

And so on.