I have never been a big fan of hospitals, yet here I sat. Wordlessly, I held my Grandmother’s hand, listening to each breath. She was somewhere north of ninety as she neared her journey’s end. She was lucid intermittently, she spoke of departed friends. She told me of her adventures; the mountains she had climbed. Sunsets she’d shared with lovers who then parted by sunrise. She told me of her voyages on Homer’s wine dark sea. “ I leave this life with no regrets.” She whispered, soft, to me. Those were the last words that she spoke though her heart kept on some time. It waited for her spirit to resume her final climb. A final lesson for her grandson; the good life requires chance. A life lived too conservatively is no subject for romance.
A most remarkable woman; she parted here with no regret. She experienced the best of Life from sunrise to sunset.
I was a late addition to the family and I never met either of my grand mothers in this life. Both, I believe, were remarkable women based on their remarkable children, my parents.