My grandmother was eighty years and thirteen days old when she died. No, she didn’t pass away. She died. There’s no sugarcoating her death, there’s no hush tone that is used when she’s spoken. My voice rings loud throughout the airwaves, intertwining and shooting straight into your ears.

“Promise me you’ll be a good girl, Aislinn.” Her hand holds mine, as I stand over her. My heart in utter despair. I can’t comprehend how a woman who had a heart attack and open heart surgery not even five months ago and just found out her cervical cancer returned after ten years could be so strong.

I cry. More specifically, I sob. Clinging onto her as I lie next to her, feeling her frail arms wrap around me, bring me back to when I was five and would sleep across her lap as she read her prayers and watched the afternoon news. Words flood out of my mouth like a hurricane, mumbling and slurring them together… and she doesn’t break down too. She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t shake, she lies there smoothing my hair, wiping away my tears, as she does the thing she always did best; tells me everything’s going to be okay.

“I’m sorry for not always answering when you called, grandma. I’m sorry for not being able to visit more often. I’m so sorry.” I remember thinking that somehow her dying was my fault. That because I hadn’t visited more often and been here, her cancer returned. And because of that I didn’t forgive myself.

When she finally died, a part of me died that day too. I lost the person who was more of a Mother figure to me than my own mother ever was. “She’s in a better place now.” My mom said to me, as I stood there in shock when I first heard. My body frozen in place, feet glued to the ground as I couldn’t hear anything but ringing in my ears.

I look just like her. “Your eyes are the same shape.” I’m told. “You have her hair, too.” I nod. “Your hand writing is almost identical.” With each resemblance I realize something. Standing in a crowded kitchen, the night of her funeral, I realize that she gave me the best gift anyone could ever have. Her strength.

Months pass, and I still have this dull ache in my chest when I hear her name or see something that reminds me of her. It took me a month before I let the one I love most get close to me again. I want to cry some days, and others I feel numb; as if she didn’t die and was going to call me that afternoon like she always did. But I’m strong. Not for my sake, but for hers. She was strong all her life, and she was strong when I wasn’t. Now I’m strong for her. I’m strong like I promised her I would be.

I won’t talk about her in a hushed voice, as if I’m embarrassed to bring up the dead. I won’t choose my words wisely. She deserves to be talked about loudly, to be talked about proudly. She was a woman who made me who I am today and who I want the world to know about. Whether there’s an afterworld or not, I don’t know, all I know is she’ll always be a part of me.