I remember

I can still see her, standing in the doorway in her housecoat and slippers, nearly bouncing with excitement as my Grandfather and I pulled up in the driveway.

She'd hug me so tightly, talking about how much I'd grown and how very much she missed me, as she pulled me into the kitchen to fix me a snack and find out what I'd been up to since she'd seen me last.

I remember the Irish blessing, the hallway filled with photos of us, the funny plastic runners covering the carpet.

We'd sit at the table, Grandpa would tell me about funny last names he'd read in the obituary or the phone book or strange bits of trivia that made me laugh-while Grandma would fiddle around in the kitchen, making her soup, starting my laundry {yes, she washed all my clean clothes-but I didnt care cause her washing machine was magical and made everything so soft and fresh smelling}.

She'd pass by me just to touch my face or tell me she loved me. She never hesitated. And I always felt like a princess, pampered and utterly spoiled.

She lived through the Depression, and she had all sorts of memories of her large Irish family, 1st generation Americans, and her early years married to my Grandfather when he was a soldier during WWII.

I was often given my own tv room, because as she put it "Young people dont want to hang out with older people", while she and Grandpa watched a show on painting and she read the Reader's Digest with a magnifying glass.

At some point my Grandfather would come in and play me his newest tape collection, usually Big Band or Bing Crosby, and he'd whistle along to the music, telling me about this musician or that, it seemed he knew everything.

Then we'd have girl time. Grandma would run my bath, wash my hair, powder me with her giant powder puff and put me in the best smelling pj's on the planet. Then she'd tuck me in, but not before telling me once more how very much she loved me.

When I was older, I asked for more stories, fascinated by the past. She and Grandpa would fill my head with anecdotes about my father, or tell me about the time when they shared living space with other soldiers and their wives. She told me about how they had met and my Grandfather's first "interview" with her giant Irish brothers.

I had a rough adolescence, but it never seemed to enter her door. Inside Grandma's house I was always a princess, always coddled and spoiled, always sure I was loved.

I wish I had appreciated it more, written all the stories down, spent more time with them both. But they never complained.

Before she lost her memory of me due to Alzheimer's, for years after my Grandfather had passed, she and I would talk on the phone, usually about him and how very much she missed him, how lost she was without him. And even then, she did her best to let me know how much he had loved me, how much they both loved me, and how she knew I loved her.

A few years past I went to see her in the nursing home, certain that my experience would not be a shocking one because I had been a nurse in an Alzheimer's ward and I had experience with the disease.

When she didnt know me, when she seemed nervous to have me talking to her, I left. I got into the elevator and cried my heart out. I felt as if I had lost her then. But I consoled myself with the memories of her, those memories of unconditional love that I took out whenever times were hard, whenever I needed a hot cocoa or a hug.

Yesterday my father called to tell me she died. She'd been fine, eating in the dining room, and then her heart just stopped.

I cried for me. I cried because I would never again round the corner in my Grandfather's big car to see her waving in the doorway. I would never again have her hug me, feel her soft skin, watch her as she pinned up her hair in that style she'd worn for years.

But I am happy for her. My Grandmother loved my Grandfather, all she'd wanted for the decade plus that she'd been without him was to join him. She had outlived everyone, her siblings, her parents, her husband. And now she's with them all again.

I love you Grandma Kay. Give Grandpa a kiss from his Wiggle Worm.