Grief.

My oma passed away on the 6th.

She would have been 91 next month. It doesn’t hurt less when someone you love that much dies of old age.

I found out on Thursday. My sister texted me in the morning to ask if I was at home, and that was hint enough: it had to be about Oma or Opa, who is 95. My dentist appointment was in an hour, so I asked her to wait. I wasn’t ready to confront my fear, and I also did not want to be alone.

I messaged Yann to ask if he could pick me up after work so that he and the cats could be with me. Yann knows that I have the habit of assuming the worst, yet he agreed that my sister wouldn’t have started a casual conversation by asking me if I was home.

Although worry consumed me, the uncertainty was enough to pull me through the two and a half hour-long dentist appointment. Yann was at work until 6, so it wasn’t until 7:30 when I texted my sister from Yann’s place to tell her that I was ready for the news.

Now only one person has had a steady presence in my life since I was born: Opa. Mom passed away in 2012; I don’t talk to Dad anymore; my brother and I have been estranged for years, and my sister was absent from most of my childhood. Opa and I have been emailing each other regularly since I was a teenager. On Christmas, though, I received an email written by Oma via Opa’s account that ended with this: