My grammy had alzhimers for along time. She was always a little weird, not your average grandmother. When I was little, I remember going over to visit, and being brought into the bathroom to be shown pieces of her nails that had chipped off. She made us chocolate chip cookies, influencing my preference of dessert to this day. She encouraged my painting, my singing, and my elefant's grace ballet. When I was real little she showed me what colors made what, by mixing food coloring into a clear glass of water. I was such an annoying kid, irritable and demanding, but she put up with it. She made me a book of "Who's That Bird" characters, and I kept it at her house to play with. When I slept over, the sheets crinkled. At the time I didn't know it was because there were trashbags under it in the event that I wet the bed. My brother told me it was the sound of bed bugs, and I cried to have different sheets.

When I was five, her son died of AIDS. She was not the same after that. She had an amazing voice, and she had a feminist attitude unaccepted for her times. She always told me to fight back, to yell, and not accept shit that came my way. She had beautiful eyes, and awesome hair, and told me my skin was beautiful throughout my adolescence, when it was most broken out.

Her parents died when she was 12, and she spoke fluent Portugese. She used to tell me "Sphedah" which means patience! She laughed a lot, and she always asked my dad if he was tired. I think she gave up a lot of her independence when she got married. When she forgot how to cook, she told me she was stopping because she had cooked forever, and now it was her husbands turn.

She was eccentric, just like me. She liked to sing and move just like me. She had the same color hair as me, and she was my dad's mother. I liked her. I liked having an interesting grammy.

She died today. The hospital could do nothing for her. She couldn't swallow, so they slowly let her starve to death. To ease her pain, they gave her morphine. She was so classy. She dressed like she was perpetually in the 30's. I loved it. She always wore hats. And high heels.

It's sad she's dead. It's sad that she died how she did. It must be hard for a self sufficient woman to die with alzhimers. But I hope she didn't know. It makes me feel good that she saw her son again today. She missed him so much. Their hug must have been magical.

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