The last funeral I attended was for a grandmother I barely knew. My next will be for a grandmother I knew very well and loved very much. The one who thought she was being sassy by giving her youngest daughter the finger only to be told that the index finger wasn't the offensive one. The one who said "sugar" instead of "shit." Who bought her five-year-old grandson Madonna's "Like a Virgin" record back in the day.

The cancer was a surprise and very advanced. The final deteroriation was quicker than I could have imagined. I'm glad my last memory is of an ostensibly healthy woman who shared some Kinchley's pizza with me on a frigid evening in February. I'm glad I had 27 years with her. And I'm sorry the babies won't. She was, as they say, the bomb.