It's crazy the life I live without you. Nothing has ever been the same since my sophomore year of high school. Six years of trials and milestones without your words of advice or hugs. You were a beautiful human being that could never be replaced. You were something special to anyone that ever laid eyes on you.

I wish I could've told her this while she was here, but I didn't know she would be ripped out of my life. She was a back bone to a lot of people's backs.

My family is nothing like the movie "Soul Food" but, we are missing that grandmother glue. I just hate holidays and birthdays and random days we'd come over just to sit and talk,they are never the same, ever. Or how the familiar foods taste different and bitter. That cold day of January 16th, still gives me unexpected chills, I just wish I could erase that day.

Funny how the day she died as well as her funeral were the very last times I have ever seen most of my family in one setting. Crazy right? I mean not all families are close but at least to me, mine used to be.

As a young woman, I can see a lot of the similarities between she and I that everyone keeps telling me about at family reunions, dinners or church events. I would laugh to myself inside and think that she would agree. I just remember all those times I would go to her house and would have a ball. I wouldn't care if she did my hair, even though she braided so tight that my eyebrows couldn't move, I just loved being in her presence.

She was always quiet, but when she spoke it was with pure elegance and power. I've always wanted to have some of her personality instilled in me. I think about her a lot, especially since I graduated high school and almost through with college. My mom reminds me of her a lot and just like a mother should, she has been there for me.

Lately something doesn't feel right when I visit with family. Yes, my mom is still here as well as my brothers, and there are other family members floating around yes, but something isn't right. I am the third oldest of all the grandchildren and I feel asthough we have been silenced. Of course,its hard to figure out what to say at a time of despair,especially since I've been quiet the whole time. I wanted more of her, and I accepted the fact that she has gone to a much better place the day I graduated from high school. Man I needed her there that day.

I just want more you know? I just though that my family would be more involved after she passed. My family pretty much checked out on each other and I never will know if it was on purpose. Every time there was a problem, no one would know about it or speak on it. We are the "don't ask and I won't tell you" type of family, and I hate that. Sometimes I ask her quietly to myself what would she do in family situations. I would like to believe we could talk things out but it never works that way. When family members check out on you, you never really understand why and honestly you will feel neglected and helpless. You give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's a mid-life crisis because after all they have their own lives. But the longer they stay away,forgetting birthdays or forgetting that it's freaking Thanksgiving becomes the norm.

Everything I've ever known as a child up until I was 15 was ripped out of my life. I never got to hear about her first love, or how her time at Jackson State was. I wonder how she was at my current age.

I just wished we had a say about who gets a meaningful item that represents a person we all love, other than the grave site. As one of her grand daughters, I can no longer sit and watch our family drift further and further apart. Even if people are stuck in there ways I will make them come together. We need each other, especially how our world is today,we've already lost so much.