As some of you may know, I did not have my grandparents truly in my life growing up.  We lived far from them, my maternal grandfather was bedridden much of the time, my maternal grandmother seemed to lose any sense of reality when he died in 1984 (or was it 1982?) and she passed away in 1993 (about this same time of year), and my paternal grandmother passed away before I was born.  My paternal grandfather and I had a great relationship, but it was hindered by the Evil Stepgrandmother.  However, there was someone who filled the grandmother void who labeled herself our “Ersatz Grandmother.”  She took the time to get to know us and adopt our family and play the grandmother role, albeit somewhat unconventionally, as she singlehandedly increased my knowledge of swearwords by the time I was 7.  She also (until she quit) could be guaranteed to have a half (or more) smoked cigarette with ash dangling from the end of it almost all day.  (Talk about an anti-smoking ad!)  She was wonderful and encouraging and “direct.”  She unfortunately passed away 4 years ago almost to the day, before she could meet Chatterer or ToaM.  She is the only reason I ever saw Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11″ (although her daughter made sure I didn’t actually pay to see it) because I went to visit her about five months before she passed away and she wanted to go see it.  Almost every week I am reminded of her in subtle ways (more so these past few weeks during the campaigns, as she was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, which always led to vociferous arguments among my family and hers growing up), but today was different.

In any event, the family and I went to the park today and I was reminded of her very acutely.  ToaM’s stroller has a toy steering wheel attached to it that makes various car noises.  As we were walking back from the park, ToaM kept hitting the horn over and over and over and over and over again.  Those of you who ever rode in a car with my Ersatz Grandmother will not be surprised to know that, for some reason, this made me think of her.  She’s the only person ever to drive a car and be told off by a cat for her driving antics.  Riding with her was… well… the phrase “bat out of He#$” is insulting to any bat’s driving skills.

I still miss her.