Recently, I was going through some old writings of mine and I discovered the speech I gave at my grandma's funeral, about three years ago. I wrote this speech on my ipod on a bus ride home from NYC. That was one of the longest bus rides of my life. She was 92 when she died, and continued to inspire me until the very end. I still think about her all the time, and strive to make people feel as cared for as she did.
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Emily Dickinson once said, "unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality."
If this were true, my grandmother would be alive for the next eighteen lifetimes. There has never been a person on earth who met my grandma and did not love her. Stuck in hospitals and nursing homes, my grandma would befriend even the grumpiest of nurses and roommates.
"She was a real grouch when I got here," she'd whisper to me, after a smiling, chatty nurse left her room, "but now she warmed up".
I don't think she even realized the effect she had. She naturally assumed that everyone had good in them; it just took longer for some people to show it.
No matter how long it had been since she had last stayed in a particular place of rehabilitation, the nurses would remember her. They would come by just to say hi, even if they weren't on duty in her area. It could have been months past, and they would still tell us how wonderful she was.
But the person I'll always remember my grandmother to be is not who she was in the hospital. Even now, as I think about her, I can barely see that image of her.
I remember the woman who would recollect, and ask about, every friend I had, regardless of whether or not she had met them before. She would recall friends of my mom's who she hadn't spoken to since high school. She'd never met them, but that didn't stop her from loving them.
The woman who humored two year old me (with a straight face, nonetheless) when I told her one morning that my imaginary friend, a character from Lamb Chop, had come wet my bed in the middle of the night.
The woman who loved to watch me, as a child, twirling around her room, making outfits by tying her scarves together, not complaining once, though I surely wrinkled and frayed them.
The woman who couldn't wait to hear about and see pictures of everything I was doing. I'd bring my laptop to her house and scroll through pictures of my friends, of any parties I'd been to, of whatever adventures I'd been on that week.
The woman who took so much pride in what her family and friends were doing, it was as though they were her own accomplishments.
The woman who, no matter how sick she got, would always be ready with a quick joke or a kind word.
If you didn't know my grandma, I'm sorry. I really am. She was one of the most genuinely caring and selfless people I have ever met. She would inspire people around her to be nicer, happier, more generous. She's notably responsible for my sense of humor. When I think about the kind of person I want to be, my grandmother is what I imagine.
So to everyone who knew her: always remember and love her. But most importantly, always remember to love each other. Because that's what she wanted more than anything.
