My grandmother died today. Just like that. She wasn’t sick, not that anyone knew of anyhow. It just happened. One minute I’m calling my mom about meeting up later, the next minute mom calls me back to tell me that my gran just died.

I really don’t want to write anything about how it happened. Or when. Or who showed up to express their condolences and what they said. It really doesn’t matter. All that is family business and it doesn’t contribute anything to what kind of person she was. What I want to say, what matters to me now, is the following:

We weren’t close, to claim so would be hypocrisy. To say that I am grief-stricken would be false. I’m in mild shock. I still say “my grandparents” not “my granddad”. My brain hasn’t quite caught up with the present. But, at the end of the day, she was kind and she genuinely cared for her family. And the most surprising thing, given just how German she could be, was that she had a real sense of humour. She could make me laugh.