"Well, then, close your ears!"

I was jolted awake in the wee hours this morning when a lightning bolt struck somewhere extremely close by, setting off a cacophonous boom and causing a car alarm to go off outside my window. For reasons unknown, my unending internal dialogue (monologue?) drifted toward death, as it has done more often in the past year then at any other time in my life. So now before the dawn even breaks I am going to write about it.

While I was away in India this year, three people in my life passed away: An uncle, by pneumonia; an old friend, by gunshot; and a former boyfriend's mother, by cancer. Being so far away and having no control (not that anything would have been different if I had been home) was not an easy task, and admittedly it made being in an exotic, far off place a bit less thrilling.

But closure, I've found, comes in odd and usually belated forms.

I went back to MN in June to bury my uncle's ashes, and I was touched by the genuine respect and admiration held by those who came. It was a celebration of his life -- a tearful but relaxed and happy coming together of family and friends, which is why just two weeks later when I returned again, I couldn't stop thinking about the similarities of that scene with the one at hand: My grandma's 90th birthday party.

It initially seemed to be a morbid and even offhand line to draw between the two subsequent family gatherings, but the similarities gave me comfort. You have to be honest about the thoughts on your mind, and the truth is, with grandma, we're all thinking we don't know if she'll be here for her next birthday. So we celebrate and eat dessert, watch a slide show, enjoy one another, and just like we did at the internment two weeks previous, we laugh and cry and toast to a life well-lived.

This year I brought along my Flip video and once again played the reporter. I interviewed my grandma about her 90 years and I treasure the documentation I have of her voice and expressions on video. If there's something I can learn from my grandma it is this: You can take the girl out of the party, but you can't take the life of it out of her eyes.

Well, then, close your ears!

Here's a quick video of Grandma in her chair in the screenhouse up at the lake, discussing her raucous youth. Sorry the resolution is so poor. Still working on that. :)