It has been a tough week. 
My grandmother, who meant so much to me, passed away last Friday, December 27th, 2013.
She was 99.
Or maybe 98 or 97. She kept her age a closely guarded secret and we have documents indicating each of those as possibilities.
Bubbie, as we called her (Bubbie is Yiddish for grandmother), was my biggest fan.
She was blessed with long life and good health more or less until the end.
Bubbie was the kind of person who would smile at the supermarket cashier and tell her how young and beautiful she looked. And she meant it. Completely.
Once a cashier, a total stranger, smiled but had trouble accepting it. “How old do you think I am?” she asked Bubbie.
Bubbie replied with a number that was about 20 years younger than you and I would have guessed. The cashier laughed. But she suddenly felt good. Her day brightened. You could see it on her face.
It wasn’t flattery. From Bubbie it was real. She saw the good in everyone and she felt it her mission to remind us of the good we are that we can easily forget.
The last few days have been a turmoil of thoughts and feelings for me.
This is the first time that someone so close to me has passed on. It was the first time I spoke at a funeral. It’s the first time I feel real mourning.
And it comes with a mix of feelings.
Regret that I didn’t call her more often since I moved 7,000 miles away fifteen years ago.
An attempt to recollect some of the stories and things we’ve done together so many years ago. And sadness when the memories don’t flow so readily.
I wish I had made a point to talk to Bubbie about life and death.
I wish I had asked her to share reflections on what it was like to have lived so long, seen so much.
I wish I had asked her, when I visited her last April, what it was like to know that statistically, you will soon be gone. I didn’t ask at the time because besides for dimming eye sight she was still in good heatlh. But mostly it was because I hadn’t slowed down enough to collect my thoughts in order to ask the question.
From all I did see and hear from others in the family who were geographically closer to her and spent more time with her – she wasn’t afraid of death.
She felt she had lived a long, happy and blessed life. And the time had come.
No crying. No ‘wishing I had’ like I’ve been feeling these last few days.
Her mind was sharp and aware until the very end.
She wasn’t resigned to her approaching death.
She was determined.
That’s how she had been about everything.
Whenever she set her mind to something, she made it happen.
And maybe that’s the biggest lesson of all.
There’s turmoil inside. There’s turmoil outside.
We all want to be and do and have more.
But what do I have to do today, this month, this year so that when my turn comes I, too, can face death not with regret, fear or resignation. But with determination.
What about you?
On this New Year’s Day, 2014 take a few moments to collect your thoughts.
Resolve to clarify what you really want and to go after it with determination.
Even if you live to 99, life is short. And it goes by fast.
I’d love to read your thoughts and reactions below in the comment section.
Dov Gordon
