Today I hope that Heaven is a place where you can fix things you broke while you were alive.

When I was a kid, the only grandmother in my life was on dad's side. She lived about 10 minutes away by car and Dad spent most Saturday mornings at her house tracking her finances and keeping up the property. As my sister and I got older, we each took a turn at joining him to mow the lawn or clean the house. I spent many Saturday mornings at Grandma's. It was a big, adult yard - no swingset but a nice park bench next to the flower garden. I have a number of strong memories of that place. I can't recall a time when Grandma was ever nice. Sometimes she was downright mean, mostly just highly indifferent. But week after week of pushing a lawn mower or mop around gave you a sense of connection. Grandma died some years ago and it was easy for me to let go. At the time, I was reeling from my mother's death and the only emotion I could dredge up at Grandma's funeral was sympathy for my father. After all, good or bad, he'd lost his mother. It just didn't mean a lot to me.

I find myself in a similar place now. I got the call this evening that my Grandfather died a few days ago. He wasn't really my grandfather, exactly. He was my mom's step dad. And it's complicated, because my maternal grandmother died when I was 2, leaving that step dad a widow. He remarried a few months after her death. A whole lot of things ripped apart the fabric of my mother's relationship with her father (he'd been in her life since she was a toddler, as opposed to her biological alcoholic abusive father). So while I vaguely knew this man called 'Papa' by my sister, I had no real connection to him. The last time I saw him was over 8 years ago at my wedding. And I only invited him to be polite. Well, he died the other day and the only emotion I'm feeling is sympathy for my sister because now she doesn't have a chance to mend her relationship with him.

In this situation, before I knew what I was doing, I decided to be the one to call my sister and tell her. And while I spoke with her, I volunteered to go to the visitation with her as moral support. Now, I'm feeling a whole lot of other things.

The woman my grandfather married never really wanted us around. It was fairly obvious - I got the message when I was still a child. But these two people are intimately connected to my mother's side of the family. And going to the visitation means I'm going to have to see all of them. And the mere thought of it is making my blood a little warm. It harkens back to that dark time of mom's illness and death. I had known them a little when I was younger. Then mom got sick and they came out of the woodwork. Food, time, hugs, love, support - as long as Mom was terminally ill they were there. After the funeral they packed up and left and stayed away. Their connection to me (my mom) and their obligation to my dead grandmother was gone and so were they. A part of me is still angry about this.

The whole thing gets into the concept of authenticity. Sure, I appreciate the casseroles that fed us during that short intensely bad time. But I resent the fact that as soon as Mom was in the ground they were gone. And I would have traded every casserole for somebody to give me time, hugs, love, and support in that dark time after Mom died. I wanted something real, something authentic to hold on to during those long days. Something solid in a world that had fallen apart. It's been over 10 years and just thinking about how amazingly lonely I felt then makes me cry now.

I must admit, even if they had stayed I might have felt amazingly lonely anyway. My whole world changed when Mom died and that was very, very hard.

When I was a kid, I never really thought about how my mother didn't have a mom or dad around. Once I got a bit older, I began to wonder a little bit about it but was afraid to ask, afraid to rock the boat. My Mom was the center of my universe but she wasn't without faults, including a tendency to lash out at the nearest person when angry or sad. Late one night I found her sitting in the living room crying, missing her parents. She said it never goes away, that missing. And now all three of them are gone, truly gone, and I hope that missing is over for all of them.