To my Grandma Annie.

You weren't actually my Grandma Annie. You weren't even a blood relation. You were my uncle's mom. You watched me when I grew up, laughed as I dug in your flower pots looking for dinosaur bones on my first archaeological expeditions. I trudged up and down your sidewalk in your shoes, dresses and hats pretending to be all grown up. One of my first memories ever is of helping you make cookies in your little kitchen that was so small that, even to my 3- or 4-year-old self, it was doll-like.

You lived an amazing, difficult life. Born in a mining town in Tennessee, you went to school until you had to leave and go to work at 10 or 11 years old. You became a mother for the first time just a few years later. You had the best stories. Remember the one about the lady who they thought had died? You said they'd laid her out on a wooden plank in the next house over and had started the last rites when she sat up with no idea where she was. And what about the stories you told us about how there were so many of you that half of you kids slept on the porch of your two-room house in the summers? And remember how you said that when you were little, you helped deliver at least one of your own siblings, if not more?

Every story you told, every utterance from your lips was tinged with kindness, tolerance and humor.

I wish you'd gotten to meet my son. You would have loved him. You always did love kids. He's a stinker, too - crazy sense of humor and everything. He would have called you Grandma Annie and I have no doubt you two would have had a lot to talk about.

Every time Uncle Rex visited you, you talked about me - even when you had long forgotten the names of your own grandchildren. Each time I saw you at family get-togethers, you knew who I was, no matter how I'd changed. I always wanted to ask you - what was it about me that made you remember? I felt so close to you - I am honored you felt so close to me, too. You had more kindness, grace and style than anyone I've ever met in my life. You were 99. We all thought you'd live to be 100.

I will miss you so very, very much. I only hope I can live up to whatever it was that made you remember me.