My grandmother and I have been close literally since I was born. For the last 14 years she has stayed with me. I have people coming to me all the time, saying 'she's so lucky to have you...'.I beg to differ - I am the lucky one. She has never stifled me, or held me back in any way. I've probably been involved in fewer relationships, because I have had her company, but, given my appalling taste in men, that's not a bad thing.

I don't know if anyone remembers a movie, I think it was called 'Marvin's room' with Dianne Keaton, and Meryl Streep. One day, Keaton's character, who was the daughter who stayed home caring for her elderly and ailing relatives says something along the lines of 'I'm so lucky'. If I remember correctly, Streep's character, who has been off living her own life, asks 'Because they (the relatives) love you so much?'. 'No', replies Keaton. ' Because I love them so much.'

That's how I feel - I have loved my grandmother so much, I have so enjoyed seeing her eyes sparkle when I brought home some silly little gift for her, I have laughed so much with her over the years; we have a bond that time and space cannot break. I treasure every moment I have left with her, soak it up, and thank God for it.. And as her life draws to it's close, I feel so completely bereft.

Western culture has a hierarchy of grief - losing a child is top of the list, followed by a spouse, then parents, and siblings and friends. Losing a grandparent is sort of in the lower category - it's to be expected, it's the way things work - as if that somehow makes it easier. I feel this social responsibility to keep a stiff upper lip through this with the rest of my family and friends, because there is this expectation that losing a grandparent should not be a 'Big Deal', and some have even expressed the fact that I will now be 'free' to 'live my life'. What the hell do they think I've been doing? Do they think that  I chose to look after the woman who was a mother and a father and a sister and a friend on top of being a grandmother to me out of a sense of 'duty'? Do they think that caring for her meant that my life was 'unlived'?

What I could never have lived with would have been throwing her into some old-age home, and bringing her out on special occasions. Her only living child, her son (my mother was her daughter) certainly  would have done that. After basically swindling her out of every cent after my grandfather died, he has offered no financial support, and a bare minimum of attention. When, 9 years ago, my brothers and I asked him to help fund two operations to preserve her sight from cataracts (we had no medical insurance at the time) his answer was - 'She's 80 - what does she need to see for?' And please don't think she wasn't a good mother to him - by his own admission there was nothing she could do for him, which she wouldn't do.

I know I'm rambling, and I'm all over the place - I'm too sad to try to write well- it's more a stream of consciousness catharsis that's coming out, while tears plop down onto my hands. I want my grandmother to stay with me - she's the only anchor I have ever had in my life. My mother and father had all the parental instincts of rattle-snakes. My mother died years ago, and my father - well - seen him once since I was 11. He has his new family - couldn't even tell you if he was still alive.

I cared for her because I loved her. Because I remember sleeping in her bed when I was sick, and her holding my hand. Because I remember how she played with me, how she left small gifts under my pillow for me to find when I got back from school. How she took out her last cents from her salary when she had to work at the age of 70, thanks to my uncle, to slip me some money while I was studying, or buy me a birthday gift. Because she did so many things for me growing up, that I couldn't list them on 100 pages. I can never repay her for any of it. All I can do is to love her.A part of me wishes I didn't love her so much - it would make this easier, you know? But then the wiser part of me thinks if pain is the price of loving someone so much, then so be it.....

Tomorrow is 'Mother's day' - the last ever. I got cards, and a bunch of small gifts, and cupcakes, and my brothers (God love them - they have more than done their bit) and I are going to the hospital to celebrate her life. We will make it one to remember...