My nana died July 1st. In a hospital bed in NoVa. She'd been in that bed for so long her coccyx was disintegrating. I had seen her 3 weeks before she died, she flirted with my boyfriend and told him she'd never met a piece of chocolate she didn't like. He has diabetes. He smiled.

Jewish funerals happen really quickly. As soon as you hear someone died you start a timer and have about 48 hours before the whole family convenes for the funeral. Her body was flown or took the train or something back to norfolk. The service was held in the same pink and klenex covered funeral parlor as my Papa's 14 years ago. Fourteen years ago there were a lot of people at his funeral, people from the neighborhood etc. For my nana's there were maybe 2/3ds less. Her only friends came from the Jewish nursing home she'd stayed in a year before. One woman was named Pearl. She was the picture of class, she held up a string of costume jewelry pearls that hung down below her waist and she proudly stated that Rose (my nana) had given the necklace to her because they reminded her of 'Pearl'.

Jewlery is really all my Nana had left at the end of her life. Rings, earrings, necklaces, big bracelets. Most of them were gold, or looked like gold. My mom tried to give me some new undershirts she had just bought for Nana (I took 3) and then she gave me some chewing gum that nana had had at her bedside in the hospital. It was a little strange chewing the gum. It is all gone now (it was a 5 pack of double mint, only slightly stale).

I miss her.