Since my grandfather passed away ten years ago, my grandmother's health has been in a state of sporadic decline. She was weakened by a bout of scarlet fever in her twenties and has been fighting shingles off and on for years. She has suffered a number of what my mother refers to as "mini-strokes," which have caused intermittent problems with her short-term memory (but certainly not her long-term memory) and lucidity. But through it all, she has been the very model of a Yankee lady, quietly feisty and tenacious, though small enough for me to lift with one hand. During the week of Thanksgiving a few years ago, in the hospital to correct her medication, she had pneumonia and a heart attack. A few days later, she was home, trying to convince my mother to help her get a dog for my wife. For years now, I've been expecting a phone call from my mother with bad news.

Last night, my mother called, and I could tell right away that it was bad news. When my mother said it, I heard what I expected to hear. But I quickly realized that she hadn't said what I'd expected her to say. She had said that my uncle's partner had passed away. "What the fuck!?" I shouted. I went instantly from a mood of dignified support to one of agitated animation--a tumult of emotions. I was relieved that the loss for which I was bracing myself hadn't come yet, I was shocked that this man with whom I'd had Thanksgiving dinner two weeks ago was gone, and I was frightened for my uncle. My uncle has lost two partners--one to years of wasting and pain, and now one quite suddenly. Perhaps remarkably for a gay man of his generation, he lost neither of those partners to AIDS. Yet I don't imagine he counts himself as lucky.

And my grandmother is apparently going to outlive us all.