Monday, July 21, 2008

Evelyn Overcast (1927-2008)

It is impossible to sum up a life in only a blog entry, and I don’t wish to try. I might choose a few select stories that I remember of my grandmother and me, and I might in future entries, but not today.

Of course I could have visited her more. I wonder if I might have been a better grandson but is it fair to ask that without considering if she could have a been a better grandmother?

What matters in the end is that she lived a full, long life. And when it was time for her to go, she was enabled to do so with the dignity befitting such a life.

I have a voicemail on my phone. It is from grandma, and it is dated June 24th, just a few days before the stroke that would eventually claim her life. On it she asks to be reminded of my mother’s birthday. My mother had just visited her, and was the last to see her.

It is tough to reconcile this voice with my grandmother post-stroke, a stroke that stole from her her voice.

Even harder is it to know that aside from memories and photographs, this is all I have left of her, a twenty second message of a life that now has passed.

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