Live.

Darling, you will never have the honor of meeting your mothers' mother for she died.

The evening of June 16, 2011.

I always believed your grandmother was immortal. Many many years of her life were spent in a hospital, in ICUs, in ventilators. Stories had been told and tirelessly retold of her uterus rupturing minutes before my birth, of relatives who thronged into a hospital expecting the worst, stories had been told of her sugar levels reaching unimaginable heights and doctors marveling that her body did not go into a coma, of her lungs normally functioning at capacities of less than 20%, of a body that had acute asthma for 28 odd years, that had slept in many a hospital bed, was pumped with many a medicine and poked with many a needle. But oh, we were convinced she was immortal.

And yet, now I know it was her spirit that kept her alive through years of pain and suffering. That kept her smiling. That refused to give up. Or throw in the towel. It was her spirit. A bright uncomplaining optimistic spirit.

Make no mistake, there are nightmares. Nightmares about hospital negligence being the cause of her death, guilt about being stranded on an official trip abroad when she died, there are nightmares. And one tries valiantly to resist.

But mostly, dearest baby, mostly there is peace. There is peace in memory of a life well lived, of a life of servitude to others in the face of personal health deterioration, a life of unshakable hope in the face of personal breakdowns, a life that welcomed every nervous immigrant whilst we ourselves lived in foreign lands, there is peace in the memory of the miracle of her life, the miracle of her body's valiant victory against continual disease, the memory of her smile in the face of the most acute physical pain. She lived, baby, oh, how she lived her life.

Live your life, dear baby.

Live.

And when you die, as we all will, darling baby, may it be said of you.

May it be said. That you lived.

You lived.