In September of 2014, I lost my maternal grandmother to a sporadic and rare brain disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD. Life without her for the past 3 years has been a completely different and sometimes empty one, but the hole grows deeper around transitions into fall and winter in remembrance of the loss. This poem was written in memory of the woman from who I learned to laugh and love as much as possible. This post is dedicated to anyone who has lost someone important, and it also serves as a reminder of how seemingly brief someone's place in our lives can be. Love and appreciate one another.

"Nurturer"

My roots were grown

like a carefully tended garden

In a house in Nashville, Tennessee where my grandmother lived

My mother’s mother, enough of a caregiver

and mother to raise an entire city

She said I was her light

during her time of darkness and I never knew because I was just a baby

The burnt orange walls, the neon plastic bath toys, and the baby

pink strawberry milk are my first distinct memories in a home

just the perfect size for a single, 50 something lady

and it never lacked the smell of warm gingerbread.

She conversed with a spirit that resided in her house

like talking to an old friend

Said she was never afraid of talking to angels.

She even placed angelic figures

atop her antique desks and her wooden hearths

and they decorated the jewelry

she displayed everywhere she went.

Everyone knew

she was a presence of light

a present to all she encountered.

Birthdays, Christmases, Halloweens

school field trips, bad days, good days

any days were never lacking the southern soul song

she called her voice that always let me

know I was bright and capable.

For the first 16 years of my life she guided me

through everything

To “never be bashful” was something she would say to me

constantly because she knew I was shy &

she knew the positive effects I could have on people if I just

opened up

Like an asteroid that crashed into the Earth with no warning

A brain ravaging disease took her

from me

Her pain wasn’t fictional. Her pain neurons were firing rapidly but

no physical causation point existed.

None of us could understand her type of pain, and no one understood mine

We won’t talk about this part too much because she isn’t gone

I’m not afraid to talk to angels.