Normally around this time each year, I’m scrambling to do two things. First, get ready to go to Riot Fest, and secondly, harassing news stations about my grandma’s upcoming milestone birthday.

When someone lives to be 110, you start to feel like they are going to live forever. My grandma looked like…well…grandma…when I was born, and had the same appearance almost my entire life. It was like she wasn’t human, but this permanent fixture there to always hold your hand and offer unconditional love. A lot of people claim to be religious, but hate and judge others. My grandma went to church faithfully twice a week as long as her health allowed, and she loved her grand daughter, a bisexual agnostic, without any strings. I think the world, especially here, could learn a lot from her these days.

I used to think at one point I was ready for the inevitable, having had so long and so many close calls. However, when she rapidly declined in the course of a week and left us back in November, I found that my heart was never going to be ready for the space that nothing else would ever fill. I miss her, and I wish I was baking a birthday cake and buying her circus peanuts from the grocery store. I wish I was holding her hand still. I wish I could tell her happy birthday. She would have been 111 today, but she’d tell you that she was starting over and 11 years old. I don’t believe in heaven, but I know if there was one she’d be having a good day today in it.