I have held back quite a bit because I wasn't ready to talk about my grandmother passing. Out of everyone I know... She was the last one that I thought would go.

It still hurts me to talk about it. Especially now with it being Christmas time. She loved Christmas and watching us grandkids and great-grand kids just being who we are.

It's funny... Most of the time I am outspoken and will tell you like it is but I wrote a Eulogy for the funeral but I couldn't bring myself to read it or speak in front of my family. I have been estranged from them due to my parents for several years. I guess I didn't feel comfortable enough to let them know how I felt... I put my finalized copy in Grams casket before they closed it. I guess maybe I felt that they didn't deserve to hear the words that I had written to comfort myself at the time. I guess I was selfish that way at the moment.

It's amazing the memories that everyone getting together stirs.There are wondrous things that I had forgotten like painting rocks on hot summer days, and laying quiet at night in our bunk beds and listening to the whipperwil calling out into the night. Those memories so precious and bejewled now... I feel so ashamed to have forgotten them.

However, what I do remember is what sets me out from the rest. Which is not to say or mean that I am better, or am more special than the rest of my cousins. I am just saying that I had lots of time to spend with her.

I spent countless summers with my grandparents. Usually the week of my mom and dad's anniversary. We went for walks and caught frogs in the creek. Even the way that the water from the snow melting in the spring and how it made deep ruts in the ditches on the sides of the road was special. She was an all around amazing women. She hand painted her Easter Eggs. She made cookies, pies and candies like it was pure magic. I don't think that she had a mean bone in her body.

I can remember waking up whether it was Christmas or Easter or just any day that I was there with her and feeling so Special. She would give us the simplest things for gifts but yet they were more spectacular than the grandest gift that we asked our parents for.

I am who I am inside because of her. She taught me courage, strength, to be humble, and to be patient. She was my living example of everything that I can only dream of being. I know I want to be as she was, even to the end, beautiful and a lady. She was the light that was always there.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am still dying inside and I am hurting