Nope, you're the best. We all voted.

It was unanimous!

Indeed!

See, I would like to add to the chorus, but bringing Grandma home wasn't like that. But I guess that was what our relationship was like(Up to and including putting her cremation on my credit card...don't have a family and wait till you're eighty-five to get life insurance...it isn't nice.) I guess it was something to see her without the protective carapace of makeup and bullshit in which she lived most of her life, but Larry David would have been proud: There was no hugging, and no learning. Maybe she knew if it had been sweet, I would have written about it and she didn't want to let me have it--no, probably it just took too long for us to know it was It, even though she was over ninety.

She sent me $10 a month, for about two years, because though she talked All The Time(I come by it natural) one of the things she couldn't say was "I'm sorry"--though maybe the apology might have meant more. I took the cash cause I knew that was what I got and it was kind of a backhanded acknowledgement that she wasn't...fair with me a lot of time when I was growing up. Which did help, but is a story I don't tell, either. Because I still don't think there's a children's book called "When Grandma's Not Okay," although I needed one, and it seems to say something about me that I only have one set of cute-grandma stories, and even those, well enough honest for one day.

sometimes, the postings are hard to read(in a touching way) but it feels like the least I could do to read since I can't be there.

Nope, you're the best. We all voted.

People always get elevated when they are in distress, but I have said, more than once, that you are the best of us, JZ.

And, considering the company, that is some damn high praise.

And, just to be clear, I also say this to my people: When I say something, it is never me being nice. To be frank, I'm just not that nice.

To quote Cordelia, "Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass."

People always get elevated when they are in distress, but I have said, more than once, that you are the best of us, JZ.

Seconding this, and I have been discussing this with others lately. JZ, you were always the best.

Nope, you're the best. We all voted.

Definitely the Best !!

JZ, nice to see you, even in flyby mode (I know, the struggle doesn't feel like flight. I'm sorry, Love). I don't need to add my voice to the chorus saying you're the best, since it's already marked down as unanimous. But you are!

Yeah...whatever decides what happens on this planet, don't think it has much to do with *deserving*. Sometimes I think mine? Is like when McNulty got boat patrol cause he said he liked open spaces.

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I wish you didn't have that pain, erikaj. I won't insult you by pretending that I can relate to your situation, but the cast of characters in my life have been so, so awful, I've had similar experiences.

I was tempted for a second to go through the litany of things I did for those people as they passed, but it's not a flex. I did all of it for my own humanity. In some ways, I guess, to prove how not-them I am, which is honestly the greatest joy of my life. My service was genuine, because it was mine, but it was not remotely out of loyalty.

What that service did for me was to dilute the effect of their evil on me and to create a stalwart and completely open ability to be with people I do love and appreciate. While they burned the fear of death out of me, they made it possible for me to be with others. So. That's the upside.

If you ever want to trade vile grandmother stories, ping me. I'm down.