Let's go fly a kite

Every year when I was a little girl my grandma would buy me a kite. We'd make a thermos of hot chocolate dig up a box of girl scout cookies and walk to the cemetery and fly it. My mom recalls that many times when she'd come to pick me up she'd find the house closed up and grandma's car in the garage. After a minute she'd look down the street and spy my little kite flapping in the breeze.

Thinking back, its one of my fondest memories. A brightly colored kite against a dreary march sky, flying over the headstones of an old catholic cemetery. Hot chocolate and lemon cookies.

Maybe its not your average childhood memory, but its mine.

And for the record lemon is still my favorite flavor for dessert.

So now at 23 I find myself in this strange place between life and death. My grandma is almost 87. She's not the grandma who drove her car down country roads unfit for old ladies and little girls just to show me where she grew up, or the grandma who spanked me in the bathroom of a fastfood place because I flicked ketchup all over her. Now, she's the just shell of my grandma. When I look at the frail lady in the hospital bed I feel like she's already lost her life. The spry legs that took me on wild outings can no longer walk. The beautiful voice that taught me everything I need to know about life is almost silent now. The nimble hands that crotched me blankets and taught me to cook lay still in her lap.

Sure, she's still my grandma. She still makes me smile and she still loves me unconditionally, she still knows me better than I know myself. But she's not Leah anymore. Old age has taken away so much of what made her, her. And it kills me. There's nothing I wouldn't do to bring her back to "life" to bring back her happiness.

I went to see her about a month ago when the doctor said it was "time" I wasn't ready, I never prepared myself to be without my grandma. When I should have been comforting her, she was comforting me.

I felt like I was fighting to hold onto a kite that just wanted to be taken away by the breeze.

She held my hand and said you have to let me go.

I get it now, she's lived her life. I can't be selfish. Sometimes its better to let the kite go and pick up the pieces than to fight the wind.

Grandma didn't pass while I was home. Knowing her she might not pass for another 10 years. But my heart is ready now. It will happen when its time.

Grandma wants to be creamated. Because "why would I want all you people standing around staring at me like that?"

I hope to fly a kite at her memorial service.