I miss my grandma, today.

Grandma Carol. Funny. Neurotic. Elegant. Caring. Powerful. Dignified. Silly.

If she were alive, today, I’d call her up right now. “Grandma, I’m going through this and that and this and that, here’s how I feel, what do I do?”

And she’d tell me.

The gift our loved ones give us, when they’re alive, is to guide us. They’ve been through it, and worse: anti-Semitism. Abuse. Being broke, alone, with three children. And the heart to grow more sane and kind and fun and powerful, through it all.

The gift our loved ones give us, when they pass away, is the responsibility to figure out our lives for ourselves.

I miss you, today, grandma. But I can find your humor, and intellectually hearty appreciation of culture, of history, of art, of politics, of reading in Aunt Liz, and in my father…and in myself.

Thank you for everything—your everything came when I needed it most. But still, today, 46 years old, I miss you.