My grandmother died last Friday night.

I knew that I would get that call, sooner or later. And her death was not entirely unexpected. However, abstract knowledge, however rational, and being faced with actual reality are two different things.

My grandmother was a very old woman. She's been getting sick more and more often, as of late. She was depressed and unhappy and just plain tired, I think, of living. Now she's at peace, no longer worried about becoming (in her words) a nuisance, able to rest at last.

And I want her back.

I want her back for selfish reasons, so that I could do all the things that I wanted-- that I intended -- to do. I wanted to talk with her about our family, about her parents, about my grandfather. I wanted her to tell me about her life-- through two World Wars and countless others, the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, and every decade since. I want to know what she thought about the world as it changed around her, and change it certainly did. I asked her about these things, but I started too late. The more she thought about them, the more she remembered, the more I thought to ask about. But it wasn't enough.

I wanted to send her the flowers she loved, and letters and postcards from all the far away places that I am lucky enough to be able to see. She would have loved to travel more, see more of the world. She did travel, too, and by herself and to some places I have never been. Iceland, for example, and Nova Scotia. I wanted to ask her what she thought of them, and tell her more about where I've been, what I've seen. I did these things, sometimes: the flowers, the letters, the cards. But it wasn't enough.

It's never enough, is it? But I know that I could have done more, should have done more, and for whatever reasons I did not, and now I've got to live with it. And the knowlege that my little pity-party for one would infuriate her, that she didn't look at things that way, doesn't make me feel the slightest bit better about it.

My grandmother was decisive, strong-willed, intelligent, opinionated, fiercely independent and accustomed to getting her own way. I adored her. She was an incredible woman, and I miss her already. I miss just knowing that she was there, and the realization that I'll never be able to see her again, talk to her again, hug her again, pains me.

She left clear and precise instructions for her funeral. Casket to remain firmly shut, no wake, donations to a charity in lieu of flowers. Having had the foresight to die during the holidays means that the chapel where the funeral Mass will be held is stuffed with flowers anyway. My father is convinced that she picked this time to go since he and Mom were in town anyway for Christmas. It saves them a trip, you see, and I wouldn't put it past her. My grandmother was a practical woman. Mind you, just how one manages to acquire pneumonia on cue is beyond me. Troll the wards of the nearest hospital and look for sick people to breathe on you, perhaps. She will be cremated, as per instructions, and her ashes will then be taken to be interred with my grandfather and the rest of her family in New York, at their convenience. It goes without saying, that it is much cheaper and easier to transfer a container of ashes across the country than an occupied coffin. That's my grandmother for you. Practical. Thrifty. She doesn't need that body anymore, and if God is going to physically resurrect us on Judgment Day, surely He won't be so churlish as to make her spend eternity in an aged body.

Not that she was a tightwad, or even cheap. She had no objection to spending money, when it suited her. She did, however, have very strong views the types of things on which it was worthwhile to spend one's money. Nice wine with dinner: yes. Decent coffee: yes. Quality clothing, quality housewares and furnishings: yes, yes and yes. Five minute phone call: yes. Fifteen minute, long distance phone call: not unless you've a truly urgent matter to discuss. Fifteen minute, international phone call: absolutely not. Flowers for live people: of course, and how sweet of you, my darling. Flowers for dead people, especially when you're only going to be in the church for an hour anyway: no way. Value for money, in other words, as long as she was the one defining value.

She did not expect, or even want, me to go to the funeral. It's too far to travel, too expensive, too much trouble. She didn't even allow my father to go to her own mother's funeral, even though it was only a few hours travel from where he was living at the time. My father told me all this, and added that he and my mother didn't think that I should go, either. It's a long trip, and expensive, not to mention that the world is crawling with terrorists, apparently, and that the USA is currently sweating it out at Code Orange.

I am quite a bit like my grandmother, in a lot of ways. I'm strong-willed, independent, and not adverse to getting my own way. (Just ask Elvis.) So I thought about it for an hour or two, and decided to go. It was a foregone conclusion, really. I love my Grandma, and I don't care what anyone says, I am going to her funeral. If our places had been reversed, and it was me who didn't think that Grandma needed to go to my funeral but she disagreed, a pack of feral hyenas wouldn't have kept her away. Why should I be any different? And if a general, unspecified fear of terrorism ever keeps me from flying someplace that I want to go? The terrorists will have won. As it is, I have no terrorism related fears of flying, so that's a moot point. The only thing I did worry about was flight cancellations or delays due to suspected terrorist attacks, increasingly common for US bound flights in these days of Def Con Orange.

As it turns out, that's a moot point, too, because there are no seats available to get me where I need to go by the time I need to be there.

That was something that I did not expect.

Nevertheless, it is true. Elvis immediately decided to go with me, and arranged for time off with his boss. I've spent the last few days trawling the internet, visiting travel agents, telephoning airlines, being bounced on and off of waiting lists. I've looked at flying out of Madrid, Frankfurt, Milan, Rome and Zurich (which would require an overnight stay at a hotel at ludicrous prices). I looked at Paris and Heathrow, which I would have preferred to avoid, but what the hell. I looked at flying in to all sorts of different cities in the US as well. I can't even remember some of the odd routes I attempted to find seats on, some of the airlines I've never even heard of. There were one or two seats available in business class at wildly inflated prices, and one in First Class that I don't even want to comment on, but I could feel the tremors of Grandma's fury all the way over here, so I regretfully declined. Not only that, but that gets me only as far as Chicago, at which point we'd need to rent a car. And even we did spend that kind of money, there's still no guarantee that the flight wouldn't be cancelled or delayed, and I'd miss the funeral after all. That is, after all, the reason that flights are so damn full right now. People are having to make alternative arrangements, either for a flight that was cancelled outright, or for one that might be cancelled or delayed in the future. It's a messy situation, and there's nothing I can do about it except moon about the house, vaguely depressed, and keep on checking for cancellations. But at this point, I'm afraid, I am shit out of luck. It's not going to happen, so I've done my best to accept that fact and get on with things.

At least my parents are happy. They feel much better knowing that I'm staying put, even though I wasn't worried about travelling, apart from the possiblility of getting stranded somewhere.

Still. I do wish that I could go. And if the world situation right now was different, it would be no problem at all. Stupid Def Con Orange. So annoying.

The kid upstairs, however, is doing his best to take my mind off of it. He is doing so by playing some kind of dance music, and doing so very, very loudly. I was hoping his mother would get home and break up the rave or whatever it is he's had going on up there since 4:00 this afternoon. Someone must have complained around 5:30 or so, because the volume did dip for a while, but it's back now, and with a vengeance. The relentless thump of bass is doing my head in, and it's getting harder and harder to concentrate.

Bastard. It seems like I've traded in one annoyance for another, although now that I think about it, I've merely added one annoyance to another which, to put it mildly, sucks.