My grandma is one of my best friends.

I was fortunate to spend so much time and space with my grandma growing up. 

I have many memories of being at her house as a child. Of sleeping over. Of being with her. One of my favourite things to do with her is share space. Be in the same room. 

She would do these things. I would soak in her radiance and love as she put my little cousins to sleep by rocking them in her arms and singing her own versions of lullabies. The lullabies asking the children who were not napping to play quietly. 

She made me the best scrambled eggs with a side of fresh bread with butter. 

She would lightly stroke her finger on my arm when I sat or lay next to her.

She cooked with no recipes. 

She joked and laughed.

She read, and socialized, and prayed. 

She still does a lot of these things. She’s aging physically. She still feels the same to me. As I age myself I recognize the beauty of our relationship. I recognize that our connection is special. 

Two years ago she was feeling very tired. I was already living away from home and visited maybe 2 or 3 times a year. I was pre-occupied with my life and what was happening in it. 

One of the times I visited we were sitting in the living room of my parents house. My mom has my grandma over for a night or two each week. So we were spending time together. I remember being with them. 

I looked at my grandma and I felt her presence. I felt something was different about her. Something was off. Not quite right. 

I talked to my mom about it. I asked her, “mom, something seems wrong with baba?” I asked my mom if my grandma was okay - she seemed very lethargic and tired, distracted. She felt weak to me. My mom said - “no, she’s fine, she just getting older and she hasn’t brought anything up.” 

I said “okay, but something doesn’t feel right about her” and I left it alone. 

Next thing I heard a couple months later is that my grandma had tumours in her body. I don’t want to tell more of this story here right now, mostly because her story is not mine to tell. Know that she is okay now and healing. 

I have this connection with her, that is beyond the physical world. I feel her. Sometimes we talk about dogs or cats being by people with medical issues because they can sense when something is wrong before the human is in crisis. This kind of illustrates what I feel with my grandma. Connected on another level.

I talked to her on the phone today. She told me she’s Netflix and chilling. Binging a show. I looove this. My grandma is a person who is completely herself. Which is one of the things I appreciate and love about her.

We talked about summer at the cottage. We talked about how it’s so great she can be outside at the cottage and people come and see her, visit with her. I feel so grateful that she has this place that she loves to be and people come visit her. I also feel very sad because this reminds me that she’s aging and that she won’t always be with me physically. 

When I was younger, my grandma was the one that was walking around to all the cottages and visiting her friends. She did this daily. I loved going with her on this adventure because all her friends adored having me around and I loved being in all the different places and meeting all of her friends. She took me with her into her life. Most of these friends of hers aren’t physically around anymore. They’ve left this earth.

Now my grandma is the one that everyone visits. This is the part she is in her journey of life. And I am in the part where I get to appreciate her and connect with her and be so grateful to have her in my life. 

My grandma, “baba” I call her, is one of my best friends in this world. She taught me so much about life through living hers.