midnight, 14 February

While I write this entry Grandma sleeps finally peacefully at a hospice facility just a short distance from my high school in San Antonio.  Earlier today I watched her breathing and thought of family bunco games on New Year’s Eve (lots of laughing and screaming) and magical punches in old-fashioned punch bowls with ice or orange slices floating at the top.  I remember tables of food and Friday night dinners to celebrate birthdays or the weekend or nothing at all.  I remember the dress she wore when I got married, and how everyone later told me she was the star of the party.  And I remember last Easter, or maybe it was the year before, talking to her on the phone and listening to her tell me in between giggles that the Easter Bunny was outside the window to surprise her great-grandchildren and (now grown) grandchildren.  There was no Easter Bunny, but I liked the idea, anyway, and was glad to think that she could have a moment of such beautiful imaginations, full of joy and surprise. 

Grandma passed away early Saturday morning.  I hope she is already hostess for the angels, smiling and serving a Valentine punch, looking for the bunco dice, and maybe planning for that Easter Bunny visit.