A TIME TO BE BORN, A TIME TO DIE . . .

Tonight, I told NRL how much I loved being surrounded by so much new life: the Little Alien, the Noodles, Jonathan, the soon-to-be completely ripe Melon. These kids whom I love so much, my goddaughter to whom I already feel so much responsibility and in whom I already place so much care and expectation, represent to me all the cliches that people say that children are: the future, the backbone of our country, our hope, everything we wish we could be but can't anymore, etc. Yet even as I think on these new additions to my extended family, I am also made to think upon those who are on their way out, leaving me and us behind ...

This afternoon, I learned that Caro's grandmother is on the verge of dying. Now, this is not one of those bizarre "she was 98 years old and passed unexpectedly" types of situations at which Hooch and I raise disbelieving and mocking eyebrows (I mean, really, who dies UNEXPECTEDLY at age 98?!). Caro's gran, a very very elderly lady, has been in a nursing home for the past several years, frail, unable to move by herself, and not completely there mentally for a long, long time. I can't imagine what she looks like now, and I'm certainly glad I can't, because my memory of her is as a surrogate grandmother, short but spry, ornery but plying Caro and I with food every other moment, slender and angular but stronger than steel, possessing a stern glare occasionally interrupted by a loud and raucous laugh.

Caro and I were best friends -- BFF, if you will -- for the longest time, for most of our childhoods, until we were well into high school, mainly because our dads were best friends, since their high school days in The Motherland. Sleepovers were Caro's and my staple, us sharing books and flashlights under the covers waaaay past midnight and trying to keep our voices down so we wouldn't get yelled at at 2 in the morning. We made a mess of our kitchens baking Toll-house chocolate chip cookies a la Julia Child, complete with high shaky voices and gratuitous flour spatters. We choreographed elaborate MTV-style dance routines to Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" in our respective basements. We traded "best friends forever" necklaces and charms. We wrote long, long letters to each other, even though our families got together at least once a month, and we coordinated outfits so we'd look alike but not too alike when we did meet up. We styled each other's hair, practiced piano duets, tormented our younger brothers, and sprawled on our bedroom floors exchanging grandiose dreams of what we wanted to be when we grew up -- she an ophthalmologist, me an astronaut. And Caro's gran, reigning with my own paternal gran, oversaw all of this with her sharp but adoring eye, just as she oversaw Appa and Caro's dad when they were young men about to embark on the rest of their lives.

Caro was my first sister; her dad was like a brother to my dad; her brother just like my own pesky Cheech; her home just as open and accessible as my own. Her gran was to be feared and revered and adored just as my gran was. In fact, Caro and her family were my first lesson in loving those not related to me by blood as though they were my own. So knowing that right now, Omma and Appa are sitting vigil with Caro's Omma and Appa, waiting for the inevitable, my heart is breaking into tiny little bits. For Caro's parents, who have to let go of someone who was the backbone their family for decades ... for Caro's dad, who like my own dad, will finally have to be completely on his own with no parents left to care for or turn to ... for Caro, who probably can't really remember her gran before the bad years ... and for my dad, who might feel like he's losing his mother all over again.

Perhaps they are sitting quietly, murmuring to each other, each afraid to break the solemn mood. Perhaps Appa is attempting to tell funny stories and be generally entertaining, in an attempt to distract Caro's parents as well as himself. Perhaps they are rationally discussing how the end was coming for Caro's gran, how it's just better this way, how relieved they are that the fight is finally over. Perhaps they are being philosophical, weighing the pros and cons of living such a long, but ultimately lost, life. Perhaps Appa and Caro's Appa are off on their own, clinging to each other as brothers, and thinking of their own past and the forty-plus years they have traveled to get to this point. Whatever the case, I go to bed with a heavy heart tonight, mourning the life of someone I didn't even know very well, but who, I realize now, too late, left a permanent and loving thumbprint on the path of my life ...