Goodbye, Flo.

Three months ago, I abandoned ship, leaving a plea for good thoughts directed my grandmother's way.

Last night, she died.

I spent last weekend with her, in New York, chatting a little when she had the energy, stroking her back a little, and mostly just sitting ineffectually by her bed or roaming the city trying to wrap my head around her rapid decline. I am so very, very glad that I was there.

I've tried to compose my thoughts a bit to write something eloquent or meaningful or reflective, but they're not coalescing into anything readable. I'm sad, and disappointed in all sorts of selfish ways, but also relieved for her (because the bedridden, edema-bloated, impossibly weakened woman lying in that bed was hardly even a shadow of my fiery, fiesty, life-loving grandma), and for all of us (because the protracted decline of someone you love is painful, frustrating, and even angering, and it is incredibly difficult to live in a hold pattern).

She slipped away last night, we think painlessly and because she was ready, without saying goodbye to any of us. She was unsentimental, and would have hated to suffer through dozens of teary farewells, and so, I think, she picked her moment and let go.

Goodbye, Grandma. You were my one and only everlovin' g-ma. I miss you so much.