What follows is a lot of reminiscing, blubbering, and a little loneliness on my part. I just needed somewhere to put down some of my thoughts.

Well all week I've been going to school, getting ready for the services, and now it all starts. I have to pick up my suit this morning, the rosary is this evening and the funeral is tomorrow morning. All her children have been working very hard to get everything ready, I got to read the obituary yesterday and it was lovely. I got a haircut yesterday, went and got all my clothing and shoes except the suit which is being tailored, and found a great picture of my grandmother and grandfather when they were in the Bahamas and got it enlarged for the table at the reception.

Now I've been crying all week, just thinking about my Nanie. I am the oldest grandchild, and so have the most memories of her. I was also the one to call her Nanie. Nanie and my mother were trying to get me to call her gram cause that's what she called her grandmother, but I had different ideas. I was about 10 months old and still in the baby talk stage but making a little more sense. Saying things like mamama when my mom was around. I said that as well to Nanie but it came out nanana. She was so excited she called my mom and told her she was called nana, over the months it evolved into Nanie and that's what all the other grandchildren have called her.

Those memories made it especially tough when I was told I needed to write a letter that would go into the casket. I started writing in the living room but as I began to tear up I moved into my grandmothers bedroom to be alone. I wandered around for a second and ended up in her walk in closet. Inside was a huge white blanket she made and I started crying again. Whenever I was sick she would take care of me, especially when I was little cause mom didn't want the others to get sick. She would always wrap me up with that blanket and her being there, and doing that, made me feel so much better. Well I took that blanket back to the foot of her bed and started writing. Most of the letter is very personal but I'll share a couple lines.

The letter opens as follows.
To a wonderful friend, amazing person, and loving grandmother. You loved me forever, I'll love you for always, as long as I'm living my grandmother you'll be.

If you have never heard that last line, or something similar to it, I recommend picking up a wonderfully sad and touching book. It's called I'll Love You Forever. It's a children book I read back in elementary school and makes me cry whenever I read it. Throughout the whole book the mother tells her son; I'll love you forever, I'll love you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be. But the third to last page, when the mother is old and dying the son holds his mother in his arms and tells her; I'll love you forever, I'll love you for all ways, as long as I'm living my mother you'll be. That's exactly how my grandmother past, in the arms of her six children telling her they loved her.