| Fanny Steve (1913 - 2005) |
| At some point in our lives, we all have to experience death. Hopefully, a person's first experience with death won't be their own. That would suck. But for those of us who have lost someone, any death at all seems to suck equally as bad. Fanny Steve (a.k.a. Grandma Fanny) was the most vivacious person I've ever met. She was street-smart, quick-witted and wise. She was vivid, full of life. Throughout my childhood, she was always there at every Chistmas or Thanksgiving dinner. She was never absent from a family gathering - in fact, she was often the epicenter of them . She was so real. It seems almost impossible that she could be dead. Yet, she is. What does that mean to me? It's hard to say. How could someone so alive be gone? She was immortal. If there are immortal things out there dropping like flies, what's going to happen next? Will the Earth itself wither away? What could that possibly mean for the rest of us? How easily could we be wiped from the hard drive of the Universe? A year ago, I wrote a biography on Grandma Fanny for English class. I took the assignment rather thoughtlessly. How big of a deal could it be? I was pretty dumb back then. Not that much has changed. Strangely, this assignment was a very big deal. I learned more about my grandma than I ever expected there was to know. She was a person. She had this entire history. And suddenly, every time I looked in her eyes I saw the entire rich tapestry of her whole life shining out at me. She wasn't just an old lady in a nursing home. I related to her, or rather, I related to the young girl she had once been, and probably still was somewhere deep inside. We were kindred spirits, and I admired and looked up to her in a way that I hadn't looked up to anyone before. She died on April 5, 2005, before I ever had a chance to tell her any of this. Death is...apathetic? |
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