Do not go lightly...

I went to see my Gram this weekend. She's recovering from a bad fall.

Look at those adorable pink nails! She's 89 years old. Her health took a turn for the worse almost a year and a half ago, and I thought I would lose her that spring.

But she's very ornery.

So ornery, in fact, that she refuses to use a walker or cane. Because, I quote, "that's for old people". Did I mention the ornery?

She can be a real p.i.t.a., no question. She's going to be moving to a rehab facility. They think she'll be there a few months. I think seven weeks, tops. I think stubbornness is actually one of the best qualities you can have, as you age.

When she fell, she broke the C-something-2-something vertebrae in her neck. There are tiny pieces of sharp bone, floating around, and any movement, a fraction-of-a-fraction-of-a-fraction off in any direction, and she could be paralyzed; one of those shards could severe her spinal cord; she could be dead.

She fell in her bathroom. She dragged herself across the bathroom, through her bedroom, and out into her living room, where she laid for roughly three hours before she was found. I just have to sit here for a second, and ponder that. She dragged herself, with a broken neck, and she laid there for hours. Doctors are...befuddled. They shake their heads, and talk about miracles.

Irish angels, indeed.

I hold her hand, and I open my heart, and I silently beg her...to rage. Rage against the dying of the light. She's my Gram. I just can't picture a world without her in it.