Dear Granny,

These past few months have been surreal.  With regards to your medical
situation and Marvin's, I have been filled to the brim with what I've
come to refer to as "calm terror."  I'm not afraid of losing you,
because I know I will never lose you even if the sun never came back
up again.  Your voice is always available to me, in my Spirit.  I've
found that all I have to do is ask, and I can feel your love and
understanding, and I can hear your words.  I've told you that before,
but I wanted to put it in this letter to show how very much I treasure
such a gift.  It turns out that not everybody has a little bit of
their Grandmother in their heart.  I can't imagine that.  And I'm so
thankful that I don't have to.

I know that you know that I love you dearly, but
knowing-about-the-knowing isn't the same as expressing.  You've put so
much energy into this world that I call Family.  I can't even use
words like "amount" or "measure" because family building (and saving,
and rebuilding, and maintaining) doesn't fit neatly in any other
category except for that which is known as "A Mother's Love."

I want to thank you for embracing and using so wisely the direction
and power of that love.  I want to thank you for giving it to my own
Mother.  This love that I'm talking about isn't a preventative for
making mistakes.  Mistakes that we make are lessons from ourselves
meant to teach us about ourselves and the world around us.  No matter
how many mistakes I've made, or will make in time to come, no matter
how adrift I will ever feel, I know where I come from.  I know my
family, I've always known them, I have always felt their love for me,
like a fabric.  This is what a Mother's Love means to me.  It has
woven a tapestry that has no end, and I am a part of its beautiful
story.  It has put your voice and words in my heart, where I will
never forget or lose them.  My mind may leave me, but I can do without
that for a while.  I think I may have proven that from time to time.

Throughout my entire life, others have referred to you by a host of
names and titles and honorifics.  Nurse.  Grandmother.  Mother.
Godsend.  Angel.  Kuku!  There have been many times when I've been
introduced to someone who worked with you, and I never once took for
granted the inevitable "Oh, you're Patsy's grandson!  I just have so
much love for her."  And never once did I doubt those devotions.  Love
is a miracle, and through what seems to be a natural grace, you kept
producing miracle after miracle.  You once told me that each of us are
as pebbles dropped into the surface of a lake:  the pebble disappears,
but the ripples on the surface keep going long after.  That imagery is
very, deeply personal to me.  Uncomplicated and poetic, just as Truth
always should be.  And that's no miracle, it's just Right.

I wanted to write you this letter and attempt to express that which
outgrew words long before I learned  more than six of them.  I can
only attempt to say it by saying...Thank you.  Thank you, thank you.

I am honored to call you my Granny.  I pray that peace be with you
always, and I love you so very much.

I remain your devoted grandson,
Robert Allan Corbell, Jr