A few words about my grandmother

I wrote this after my grandmother died in 2008, I guess I felt like I needed to say something about her I've always known


It was different, that's the first thing I can say with certainty.

Being at my grandmother's house without her there made for a very interesting experience. It was much less stressful and definitely less predictable from a routine standpoint.

My grandmother, Miriam Bower, died on Sunday, January 6. She was 3 months shy of her 90th birthday. I got the call on Monday while I was at work, and not surprisingly, I was stunned. Originally it was thought that she fell down the steps leading to her basement, but the coroner's opinion was that she suffered a heart attack before that.

The people of her community who knew her were also, not surprisingly, stunned as well. I lost count of how many said to me that they had just seen her in church earlier on the day she died. Just like I lost count of the people who told me that they played cards with her. She loved playing card games. And she was pretty good at it too.

Except for a brief period, my grandmother never lived more than 5 miles from the house she grew up in Niagara County, New York. It was where she called home, and she was as much a part of it, in my mind, as the Falls themselves.

I wouldn't say that I was particularly close to her, owing to the above point and the fact we only saw her a couple of times a year. We were a lot alike in our personalities, a fact that is probably evident to those who put stock in astrology, seeing as we had birthdays one day apart. We just seemed to have a "personality clash". Not that I'm proud of that, but I think it explains something about me. I was her only grandson, so it makes me a bit guilty to have to admit the part about not feeling close. Maybe I was closer to her than I want to admit to myself.

But it doesn't change my love for her, or my admiration of her spirit and good nature. She was one of the most selfless people I've ever known, and never met someone who was a stranger for very long.

People who recalled their memories of her to our family struck the same themes, time and again throughout the week–she was very committed to her faith, she loved organizing games, and get-togethers with family. She was patriotic and appreciative of history. She was thoughtful in so many ways, and inquisitive as to goings-on in town and with family near and far.

She was a product of her environment and the time that she grew up in–she never wasted anything and saved everything she thought could be of use at some point in the future. The amount of accumulated stuff in her house was just mind-blowing when you had to confront it to decide what to keep and what to throw out.

Her loss leaves us, her family, a bit lonelier. Yet knowing that she didn't have to go through the final years of her life in some state which would have impeded her independence, a bit relieved as well. She was a bit stubborn when it came to things where she didn't have control. She would never consider leaving her home and living somewhere that required less work to maintain.

She's left us here, but she's gone somewhere she knew all along in her heart she was destined to be. If they play cards in heaven, she'll already have gotten a game going, I'm sure.