I peered into the semi-darkness of our bedroom after waking up way too early for Labor Day. Unable to go back to sleep, I carefully moved Josh's arm from where it lay across me just under my chest. He rolled over onto his side, curling his legs up towards his chest as I got out from under the covers and got up.

I shrugged into my robe as I padded down the hallway, peeking in on the kids, checking on them. I headed for the kitchen and started the coffee. As soon as there was enough, I poured myself a cup and fixed it the way I liked it before taking a sip. Feeling more awake, I glanced at the clock and did the math. It was nearly nine am in Ohio. I picked up the phone and called Mom.

"You're up early," Mom quipped.

"Woke up and couldn't go back to sleep," I answered. "Is everything okay there? I've got a feeling like something's about to happen," I explained.

"Well, Grandma's in Hospice and we've been told to call the family in," Mom admitted after a moment.

"This is it then," I whispered.

"Looks that way, sweetie."

"Alright, I'll get looking at flights then. I want to be there for the service at least," I replied, sipping my coffee.

After hanging up with Mom, I let myself think about Grandma. With her imminent passing, the family I grew up with would be down to just Mom. Sure, I still had two older brothers, and some extended family, but I had never been close to them.

After the tears subsided, I got into gear, booking tickets for everyone. After a shower, I pulled out the luggage and started packing, stopping only to get cereal and milk out as my children started to wake up. Finally, everyone was packed and ready for our flights that afternoon.

Once in Ohio, Zara, Olivia, Aydin, Aurora and I collected our luggage (Josh took the later flight with Celine, Scottie and Harry) and got a rental van and headed for the hospice building where Grandma was. It was late evening and they were almost done with regular visitors hours. They directed me to Grandma's room and Mom stood up when we entered. We hugged, and then I hugged my aunt. Finally, I got a look at Grandma. Almost all her hair was gone from the chemo and radiation, the few wisps left were clasped in a pretty barrette. Her face and hands were extremely poofy, and she was sleeping heavily, with pauses between breaths. I felt a tug on my hand and turned to see Aydin looking up at me with wide eyes.

"Is she going to die?" he whispered. I felt all the air in my lungs rush out and was instantly holding back tears. I nodded and knelt down to give him a hug. He hugged back, and Aurora turned it into a group hug. I let a couple of tears fall and kissed both of them on the temple.

"I love you so much," I whispered to them as we pulled away. They looked a bit unnerved and I gave them the best reassuring smile I could as I wiped away the tears.

"Why don't you two go and take Zara and Livvie out to see the fish?" I asked. We passed a huge fish tank on our way in, and I knew they'd be fascinated for a few minutes. They nodded and the four of them headed into the lobby. My mom went to get another cup of coffee and I took her vacated chair, picking up Grandma's bloated hand.

"Hey," I told her quietly. "I'm here, Grandma. I don't know if you can really hear me, but I love you and I will miss you. I don't know if I'll get to see you again, but If I don't, I hope the trip to wherever goes smoothly, and tell Grandpa I said hello." I squeezed her hand and sniffed a few more times.

After a few minutes, I squeezed her hand and decided it was time to head home. I bid my aunt good night and headed for the lobby a few doors away. Mom was sitting in a chair, holding her coffee, watching her grandchildren tapping and running the length of the fish tank.

I sat down next to Mom and rubbed my temples. We sat quietly, watching the kids and the fish.

"How are you holding up?" I broke the silence.

"Alright, I suppose," Mom looked down at her coffee. We sat silently some more. Olivia finally got bored enough of the fish and crawled up into the chair next to mine and sighed dramatically.

"Ready to go home?" I asked her. She nodded. "Alright, let me go say good night to Aunty Patty. Go give Grandma a hug."

Olivia nodded again and scooted off the chair and walked over to the chair next to Mom and climbed on and hugged her. I smiled as I got out of the chair and headed back into the room. I said good night to my aunt and gave Grandma one last squeeze on the hand. I bid Mom good night and peeled the kids away from the fish tank and herded them to the car for the half hour drive to our Ohio home.

After they had gone to bed, I sat in the living room, listening to the silence of the house and doing more crying than crocheting. Josh arrived just before midnight, and I decided to call it a day and followed him to bed.

It was like a family reunion the following day when we arrived to visit. All my cousins that still lived in the state were there, and my uncle (as well as my favorite cousin Mary) had made it in from Arizona. My oldest cousin was missing, but his wife and nearly year old daughter were present.

Josh excused himself not long after we arrived, taking Harry with him, and I promised my teenaged cousin Brittney fifty bucks if she would take the kids outside into the court yard that over looked the lake. We decided that it was a nice day out, and paged a nurse to help us move Grandma and her bed out onto the concrete patio just outside her door and into the sunlight. She mumbled a little when they wheeled her over the bump, the first sounds I had heard her make since arriving, and we gathered around her bed and chatted. Josh popped in the room long enough to root through my purse for a diaper and wave at us as we all turned to look.

Needing a little reprieve from the family, I wandered through the halls, exploring the facility. Near the public bathroom I started to hear a piano and followed the sound down the rest of the short corridor to the next one, which didn't have patient rooms, but were lined with offices and therapy rooms. I walked past a visiting room, the only room where smoking was allowed, giving the people inside a smile as I passed. The next room was labeled "Music Therapy" but seemed to be half music therapy, half library as one side was cordoned off with a low bookshelf and there were a few chairs and more books on that side.

The piano was a keyboard up against the wall just inside the door, and Josh was sitting on the bench, Harry on his lap. Harry would play a key and then look up at Josh, his eyes wide. Josh would smile at him and play a little tune for him, Harry watching his every move.

"Trust you to find the one room in the entire building where you could not only hide, but play music," I joked. Josh and Harry gave me identical stares and I pulled a chair over from the other side of the room.

"Sorry for running out like that," Josh apologized.

"No worries, it was pretty crowded in there. And Mom's side of the family is pretty female-heavy," I turned my attention to Harry as he tentatively played two keys at the same time. "I think someone's going to get a toy piano form Santa this year. First time on an instrument and he's not even trying to break it."

"Yeah," Josh said, playing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" single-handedly. I watched them for a moment before scooting onto the bench next to Josh. I pressed a few keys, frowning until I found the right one. Josh watched as I stretched my fingers and looked at him. He smiled and started playing the beginning of "Heart and Soul" and I joined in with the melody.

After we play through it once, I drop my hands and turn my head, pressing a kiss against his shoulder. "Thank you," I murmur, resting my cheek against his shoulder.

"How ya doing, honey?" he asked, turning the keyboard volume down as Harry starts whacking on the keys.

"Alright at the moment. This one's hitting me pretty hard though," I admit as I turn back around. Josh rubbed my knee. "It's so hard to see her like that. Half of me wants her to get better, the other half just wants her to hurry up and get it over with. Am I horrible for wanting that?"

"No, I don't think so," Josh answered. I look down at my hands for a moment, trying to straighten out my emotions.

"We should probably put in a little more face time, then head home," I sigh before getting up. Josh turned the keyboard off and put Harry on the floor, taking his hand. I put the chair back and joined them in the hall, taking Harry's other hand, we started to head back towards Grandma's room.

The people in the visiting room called out as we walked by. We stopped and they asked if that was us playing the music. We replied that it was, and they thanked us for the lovely music. We thanked them and continued on down the hall.

"Swing!" Harry asked as we reached the lobby. I glanced at Josh. He shrugged and we lifted our arms at the same time, letting Harry swing for a step before putting him back down.

"'Gain!" he cried between giggles. We continued across the lobby slowly as he wanted to swing every other step. Brittney was there with Zara and Olivia, making up stories about the fish. Celine was curled up with her latest book in a chair nearby.

Grandma was back in the room and everyone else were gathered in there. I guided Harry over to where Chloe was playing with someone's set of keys.

"Moooom," Scottie whined. "Can we go yet? There's nothing to do."

"We will soon. Why didn't you bring anything like I told you to? Where's your Game Boy?"

"I left it in the caaaar," he whined.

"Stop whining, you sound like a baby," I told him.

"But Moooooooom,"

"But Scoooooooooott," I mimicked him. A couple of the adults chuckled and he sulked out the door and towards the lobby.

We spent another hour there, Mary having pinned Josh and I down and we talked about her wedding, which she had just set the date for the following August. Eventually Brittney had drifted back in with Zara and Olivia, both of them asking when we were going to leave. We made our goodbyes and after stopping for an early dinner, went back home.



The next morning was spent doing laundry and putting bored kids into time-outs since they only had a few games to play and no cable tv to watch. I was looking forwards to taking Celine and Scottie down to the high school after they let out so they could hang with their father for a few hours. Josh got tired of the bickering and walked them down to the local park to blow off some energy, giving me time to finish the laundry in peace and grab one of the rare bubble baths that I was in desperate need of. I took the opportunity to let my guard down and let everything out.

Once I had cried myself dry, I rinsed off before heading into the bedroom, sniffling a little as I dried off and got dressed. I left a note for Josh and went to the store to get some groceries. When I returned, they were back from the park, and after a lunch of mac and cheese, I took the kids to Mom's so that Josh could get some peace for a few hours.

Mom surprised me with a box that my Aunt Robin had dropped off a few weeks earlier, my inheritance from Dad's side of the family.

"Wow, I wasn't actually expecting to see any of this stuff again," I commented as I opened the box. Inside were the things I expected to see - the Santas I had given Grandma over the years, the milk-glass collection, and at the bottom, wrapped just as carefully as everything else, were a small collection of photo frames. The first one didn't surprise me, a collage of my school pictures that used to hang on the bedroom wall.

The second one made me glad I was already sitting. Grandma had been an avid subscriber to People magazine, and contained in the frame I was looking at was the issue from August 2000, the cover showing Brad & Jennifer's wedding photo as the main picture, and a small picture to the side of the guys with a caption indicating their filmed concert at Madison Square Garden. At the bottom, separate from the cover, on it's own piece of matting, was the small paragraph announcing my marriage to Lance.

"Oh, wow," I whispered. I handed it over to Mom and pulled out the next one. It was like the first, except it was from May 2001 and the small paragraph was a birth announcement for Aydin and Aurora. I sniffed and ran my fingers on the glass over the announcement. "I had no idea she kept these." I handed the frame to Mom as well.

I reached into the box for the next frame and found a third magazine, the first one from September 2001, with a little excerpt announcing that Lance and I had gotten divorced.

"I didn't even know it was announced," I murmured. "That's kind of creepy," I handed it to mom as well. Under neath was two copies of the one year anniversary of 9/11 issue. I flipped through one copy and found Zara's birth announcement. I handed it over to Mom as well.

"The last announcement they knew to look for, they even looked for it once she was gone," I shook my head, surprised that they had kept all those things.

"They loved you, you know," Mom pointed out.

"I knew Grandma did," I replied, peeking in to find the last frame was pictures of Celine, Scottie, Aydin and Aurora, from Celine's hospital photo to the last ones I had given them of Celine and Scottie holding Aydin and Aurora on their couch, taken the last time we had been to their house, just weeks before Grandma passed away.

"Awwww," I cooed as I pulled it out of the box as well. "I had forgotten I had taken some of these," I smiled at the memento, glad that my aunt had decided to give it to me rather than doing who knew what to them.

Celine moved over to the couch to see what I was looking at.

"Are those me?" She asked. I nodded.

"Your Great-grandma Kern kept these," I explained. "There's your hospital photo, and Scottie's," I pointed to one of me holding Scottie and a ten month old Celine standing on Scott's lap, to get a peek at her brother. "That was the day we brought Scottie home from the hospital.”

"That's Dad?" she asked, pointing to Scott.

"Yep."

"He looks funny."

I laughed, "I suppose so," I looked up at the clock. "Speaking of your father, it's time to take you over to see him." I put the frame back in the box. Celine took it out again and walked off with it. I lugged the box out to the van, placing it in the trunk. I wished Mom luck for her shift at Hospice, and we headed for the high school. Celine was still looking at the photos of her as an infant.

Once at my Alma mater, we headed up the stairs immediately inside the doors, heading for the math department's office. I poked my head into the room, but just a few of the other teachers were there.

"Can I help you?" one of them asked as I moved into the room some more.

"I'm looking for Scott," I explained, hiking Harry up on my hip. The other teachers looked over.

"Samantha? Samantha Kern?" one asked. I glanced over and smiled.

"Oh, Hi, Mrs. K. How are you?"

"I'm doing well, what have you been up to?"

I gestured towards Celine, who had entered the room behind me. "Being a mom, mostly. Moved out to Los Angeles a few years ago. In town for a funeral.”

"I'm sorry to hear that," She said. Some loud banging issued from the locker bay across the hall.

"Thank you. Excuse me a moment," I left the room and found Scottie bouncing from locker to locker.

"Scott Brewer, what are you doing?"

"Playing Power Rangers," he replied.

"Okay, you don't need to bounce against the lockers."

"I do, Mom, they've got me trapped here, and I've got to figure out the combination to get out!"

I crossed the hallway and tapped the top of the row of lockers. "There, I just set you free."

"You can't do that!"

"I'm the Mom Ranger, all bad guys fear me,"

"Really?"

"Oh yeah, they have nightmares about me."

"Cool!" He ran out of the locker bay and started down the hall.

"Hey! Stay in this hallway!" I called after him. He stopped in his tracks.

"But Mooom," he whined.

"No buts, it's a big school and I don't want to have to spend the rest of the afternoon looking for you.

"Fine." he headed back and sat down in the alcove next to the planetarium and turned on his game boy. I stepped back into the Math department's office.

"Sorry," I apologized.

"No problem," Mrs. K answered.

"Mom?" Celine piped up.

"Yes?"

"Why are there no pictures of Scottie as a baby in this?" she held up the frame of pictures again.

"You know, I think I'll let your father answer that one," I answered as Scott entered the room, holding a pile of papers.

"Hello Sam. What am I answering?"

"About why I have no pictures of our kids for about two years," I replied sweetly. He turned to Celine.

"Can I answer that one later?" She nodded.

"You keeping them overnight?"

"And what, drop them off at five am?"

"Fair enough," I pat Celine on the head. "I'll see you later, gator."

"Okay Mom."

I waved at the other teachers and after guiding Scottie towards the Math office, headed back down the stairs with the rest.

The call came in that night, just after nine-thirty. The kids were all in bed and Josh and I had put on one of the Harry Potter movies when Mom called to deliver the news. I told her I was sorry for her, and Mom said Grandma had gone peacefully. I hung up and blinked a few times. Josh pulled me against him and rubbed my back slowly as the shock wore off and I started sobbing into his shirt. He just held me as I battled with my emotions, my tears and sobs coming in waves as I calmed down only to set myself off again with a thought.

I did eventually calm down enough to sit up and look at Josh. "Thank you," I whispered, my voice hoarse from crying. He nodded, his eyes searching mine. I sniffed and he seemed to find whatever answer he was looking for since he leaned forward and grabbed the remote and turned the movie and tv off. He got off the couch and I heard him quietly closing a cabinet door in the kitchen and running the tap before he silently returned, offering me the bottle of NyQuil and a glass of water.

I let out a short laugh. "Drug me into oblivion?"

He put the items on the end table and crossed his arms. "I didn't mean it like that," he started.

"I know," I picked up the medicine and read the back.

"It worked the last time, I just thought..."

"I don't know if I should be glad or sad that you know how to be there for me like this," I muttered as I poured out a dose and scrunched up my nose as I took it. I took a long sip of water and headed for the kitchen where I spat it back out in the sink.

Ten minutes later found us curled up together in bed, Josh's body a firm yet comfortable presence against my back as he held me close.

"That's an entire generation of my family, gone," I whispered.

"I know," Josh whispered back.

"All those memories, experiences, stories that will never be told again." Josh kissed my shoulder.

"I know," he whispered again.

I sighed and leaned my head back against his shoulder. "What have I ever done to deserve you?" I ask, sleep starting to take hold.

The rest of the week was a blur of fielding phone calls, making plans, and sorting out the little things. Saturday was the set date for the service, and my step-cousins were all flying in with their kids.

Saturday came, and I awoke too early and spent the extra time taking a long shower before starting to gather up items and packing them away so we'd be ready to go in the morning. I then through myself into making a double batch of cinnamon rolls from scratch, icing included. I watched my family stumble out of bed one by one as the scent wafted through the house. The kids all packed their own suitcases, after which we spent the last hour or so before we had to leave getting dressed (and staying dressed).

Once at the church, Josh wrote our names in the book and picked up a few of the prayer papers, tucking them into his suit pocket. He kept close to me as we weaved through my family members and members of the church, hugging and shaking hands and thanking people that stopped me to express their sympathy. 

"You don't have to be at my elbow," I whispered to him as another of Grandma's friends left us. 

"If that's what you want," he whispered back.

"It is," I snapped. 

"Fine," he replied before turning heel and gently herding the kids that were still with us into the sanctuary with him. I found Mom and gave her a hug. We stood near the door to the sanctuary until everyone started to head in, and I headed in and found Josh sitting in the third pew, quietly reading hymns to Harry and Zara. I scooted in, and sat down between Zara and the Aydin.

The service itself was lovely, a lot like the one we had for Grandpa just three short years ago. We sang some of Grandma's favorite hymns, and instead of a service, we had a chance to talk about memories we had of Grandma. It was pretty interesting to hear some of the stories from her friends, of things that she had done before I knew her.

After the service we were encouraged to head down into the basement for the typical gathering. Josh and I got a table to ourselves and I watched him as he worked his way through a plate heaped with food. I picked at my pasta salad. Josh glanced up after awhile.

"You okay, Sam?"

I nodded, taking another bite of salad. Our table cleared out as the kids finished their plates and ran off to run around with their cousins. Josh finished his plate and sat down next to me after taking it to the garbage.

"Sorry about earlier," I said.

"It's fine." He said, surveying the room.

"It's kind of nice to see everyone together again, I haven't seen half these people since Grandma and Grandpa's fiftieth anniversary.”

"I don't know most of the people here," Josh gave me a little pout and I laughed.

"I don't know half of them either," I admitted. Josh smiled.

"I'm here for you," Josh assured me.

"I know, and thank you for that, and everything you've done this week."

We were interrupted by Mary and someone I had never met before. She introduced us to her fiancee, and they joined us. Mary and I shared stories of summers spent at Grandma's house. Our cousins Brittney and Liz joined us eventually, and soon we were all laughing with tales of silliness of the days gone by.

"Mary, remember the time we were what, six and eight and Liz asked us why we didn't have any front teeth?"

"Oh, yeah! And we told her we were vampires!" Mary exclaimed.

"I only believed you for like five minutes," Liz replied flatly, sending us into another round of laughter.

It wasn't long after that everyone started leaving. Josh went to find our brood as I helped Mom pack up her car. I carefully carried Grandma's pretty wooden box to her car and seat belted her into the front seat.

I left with enough leftovers that I wouldn't have to make a dinner. Thankfully the evening was a quiet one, the afternoon having drained each of us of our energy, and we all fell asleep early so we could get enough sleep before catching our flight the next morning.