I had a huge crying jag last night. The husband was at a friend's house playing video games, so I was alone, which is always.. difficult. I don't like to be alone for very long. Anyway, the ghost in our house was stomping around, and for some reason, god help me why my mind works this way, I started thinking about my grandmother instead of feeling scared. I look just like her, I am told.

My dad's parents met in London during World War II. My grandpa was very good-looking, and had the exotic appeal of being an Indian (of the American style :P), so I imagine that he had no trouble snagging an elegant Irish woman. She was in London with the Royal Air Force, my grandpa there with the US Air Force, so I imagine that they met in some way through their careers. They married after the war in Ireland, where they lived with her family for a time. She was the only biological child of a retired Scottish teamster and a Northern Ireland woman. Since her brothers were all adopted, I don't even know if there would be any family left in Ireland. Or Scotland, for that matter.

Anyway. She and my grandfather moved to the United States and started a large family while travelling around for my grandfather's military career. They retired in a liittle town near my own hometown. My grandmother never adjusted to life in the United States. She and my grandfather both had a lot of scars from the war and terrible tempers, so I am told, and they fought a lot. In 1964, when my father was just under two years old, my grandmother caught pneumonia. She refused treatment, and died at home. She was about six months pregnant with a baby girl.

Her legacy, and all that happened in the wake of her terrible death, is something that I will never be able to get over.