"'Goodbye' is too good a word, so I'll just say fare thee well..."

So, a bit of lag time between posts once again. This time is due in part to the passing of a great woman, my grandmother, Edna Mae. She passed away last week at the age of 92, leaving behind 7 children, 18 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren. Oy. (It makes me tired and sore to merely think of those numbers.) Understandably, I heard a lot of sweet stories about her in the past week, and there were a lot of tears shed over losing a mother figure with all of the diurnal, domestic, familiar images that usually accompany a woman in my grandmother's position. I definitely have some of those memories of her-- whether or not she enjoyed it, that woman could cook. And when I was living Cincinnati, she took it upon herself to be my personal seamstress and she was remarkable at it. (I was worried that the somewhat vast age gap between us would get in the way of the final product, but it absolutely did not. I should've known better.)

But, being the woman I am, I'm drawn more to the memories of my grandmother as a someone beyond a wife and mother, caretaker and nurturer. She was a ballet dancer. She was a model. She had a lovely singing voice. She could be a really good gal-pal. And she was kind of salty, too. I had the chance to live nearby for a few months and develop a kinship with her beyond the grandma-grandchild relationship; we talked about boys, we argued about politics, we talked shit about people in our family that we driving us nuts at the time, she needled me about coming back to the Church and I needled her about Fox News, etc. She had that irreverence that I so adore in my friends and siblings, and I feel very lucky that I was privy to that even for a short time. During a visit back to Cincinnati, I was staying with her. I had gone out for the evening to see some friends, and I was dealt a really upsetting revelation. When I walked in my grandma's door that night, she was still up, reading and listening to Hannity or whomeverthefuck, and she greeted me warmly. I immediately burst into tears, and she let me sort of collapse on her [despite her being a somewhat frail 90-year-old and me being a somewhat drunk, somewhat thick 27-year-old], and she talked me through the bruise on my heart. I'm telling you: a really good gal-pal.

I can't help but notice something interesting about my grandma's passing. So, when her husband, my grandpa, died in July of 2008, it set my path in an entirely new direction. If that hadn't happened then, I wouldn't have gone to Cincinnati and had my first taste of campaigning; I don't know how my tumor would've revealed itself but I wouldn't have had the same neurontourage and met those incredible people who pulled me through; I wouldn't have met Jill or Olivia, or any of the political folks that continue to inspire me today; I wouldn't have had the chance to get to know my grandmother the way I did. Now that she's gone, I am wondering if I should be ending this chapter of my life and moving onto something else. That was an entirely unplanned detour on my journey, so should I be getting back to the original path? I apologize if I'm being redundant, but one of my favorite song lines is particularly germane here.

Well, I never seem to do it like anybody else

Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down.

If you ever wanna find me, I can still be found

Takin' the long way, takin' the long way around.