What I Need to Know...

My Grandma is sick and I need to know if she's going to be okay. If not...I need to know if she knows how much I love her...how much I have and always will look up to her. I need to know the secret of her strength. How is it that she's managed to live all these year since the love of her life, my grandfather, passed away.

It's been more than two and a half decades since the father of her children, the man who sent her love letters from World War II, left her side. She's endured almost as many years of excruciating pain from the surgery that cut cancer from her chest, but left nerve damage that reminded her hourly of the knife that saved her life. I need to know if that strength is something in her genes and if I inherited some of it. I need it now. 

I'm outside waiting for dinner to cook. I'm cooking the rice meatballs she taught me to make last time I visited her. They've always been my favorite of her dishes...and I have many. I have her pancake recipe written on the inside flap of my "Joy of Cooking" cookbook. I need to know if I've asked her how to make all the other things I love...what about the peanut brittle...do I have that recipe? 

Have I asked her to tell the story about how she fell in love with my Grandpa enough times to remember it? If not...has my Dad memorized it? ...What about the stories she hasn't told me yet? Shit! (...oh no, she'd wash my mouth out with soap for that!)

There are so many things I need to know...but one thing I do know...I'm not ready to lose my Grandma. It can't be her time yet...I hope she knows.