If I had to think about who I divide my time with it would be: my mother, my father, my friends, and my grandmother. As I got older and was able to travel on my own I would always ask to sleep over and see her. I would come over Friday where we would have Chinese for dinner and talk about what was going on with each other, What books we were reading, and what music we would listen to. We would watch a movie usually something Tyler Perry related or something old that she would teach me or I would already know like "Gone with the Wind" or "Coal Miner's Daughter". My mom would call me and grandma would tell her to stop calling because she was interrupting our time together. The next morning my grandmother would feed me her grits with a slice of cheese on top and sausage. I only ate hers because she would stir them for hours until they would just in your mouth and go down smooth. We would do the same thing again Saturday which was watching tv and enjoying our time together. By the time it was Sunday I wouldn't want to leave but would have to because of school and everything. I never wanted to leave.

I have always been compared to my grandmother. From the way I look, how much I love to read and listen to music that was before my time, my love of cheese and how we wrote looked similar. I was never offended because it was great to have someone just like me and because of that I made sure to spend a lot of time with her. We went to North Carolina during the holidays and go to the movies together. You would think after starting college that we would stop but it didn't. We would meet on the train and go to Morristown together to play pinball at the Game Vault and go out to eat whether it was to hang out or celebrate my birthday together. It was what I loved about her and how she accepted how advanced the world had become with open arms. How many grandparents do you know that can work a smart phone, tablet, laptop, smart tv without help?

And as I write this I notice how automatically I write about her in the pass tense and I hate it. February 19th I find my mom coming to see me on campus in the middle of class to tell me my grandmother passed. I couldn't believe it because I just spoke to her last week about me going out for recruitment and how she was going to help me get ready to study abroad. I didn't want to believe it because we had these plans for her to come see me again on campus when it was warmer because she loved being here during family weekend and that I was going to take her to her first broadway show because she grew up in New York but had never seen one. We always spoke about the future together. She was suppose to go to Vegas for mother's day, she was gonna be there at the airport when I wave goodbye for abroad, she was going to see me graduate college, I was going to give her more great-grandchildren. I thought she was going to live forever especially because she stopped smoking. We were part of 3 generations of women and now it's only 2. I am now down to only 1 grandparent and my mother and aunt are now orphans. What a sucky way to start the new year. All I can think about is her and how much I miss her and love her.