They remembered...

My grandmother died a little over a month ago. I went to say goodbye to her. She looked like she had become one with the mattress she was laying on. I could see her heart beat in every vein in her body. She moved, tried to come toward my voice when I walked in the room. I told her everything I've ever wanted to say to her. I cried on her. I told her to hold my girl for me, to tell her how much her mommy loves her and misses her. I told her she was the greatest woman I ever knew. That was the last time she moved at all.
 I only focused on getting through the visitation and funeral. They didn't cover up Zoe's grave to bury her like I was so scared of.
 My uncle stopped me outside of the church, after I had gone to visit Zoe in the cemetery and see my grandmother actually in the ground, and told me that she had waited for me. He told me she never moved again, that she was waiting for my goodbye. I don't know about all that but he and my grandfather believe it.
 In the midst of all these anxiety invoking services over the course of two days, I never peeked at her obituary. When I finally decided to, I noticed that it reads, "Faye was preceded in death by, her first husband, parents, a brother, a grandson and great grand-daughter". I never saw that.
 This part of my family, that ignores everything, or at best will sweep an uncomfortable subject under the rug, remembered her. It took days to notice, but they remembered her. They included her. This same group, who left Zoe's name off of a huge family tree decoration at a family reunion (I took a piece of construction paper and a sharpie and added it in anyway), remembered to include my girl. They acknowledged that she once was. To me, she still is.
It's September. Almost three years since she was born.

(Thinking of Ciaran too, Bir)