It was below freezing outside when I crawled out of bed this morning, which may be why the tears wouldn't form when I got the phone call. It wasn't an actual conversation, just a message on my cellphone. I could tell by the way Mom spoke so slowly and carefully, by the slight quiver in her voice, that something bad had happened to somebody good. Before she could even say the name, I had figured out who it was.

My grandmother died in her sleep this morning.

I find it eerie that last night, after I took a shower at 1am, I thought of her. I thought how it would be 2 years since I'd see her last, if I made it to East Tennessee this summer. How frail she had looked the last time I saw her. How it was all I could do not to cry as she squeezed my hand in the ICU. The way her eyes had brightened when she saw me. And I imagined what I would say when they told me she had died. How I would wish I could have seen her one last time. How I should have come back to America early and visited her last summer. Should have, would have, could have, nothing.

The news of her death was nothing more than words, strange patterned sounds, that kept echoing in my head all day. I didn't have enough time to stop and let those sounds convert to knowledge and on to feeling. As I walked back from the hospital this late afternoon, the temperature rose to 34 degrees and the ice floes began to melt. It was all I could do to keep from sobbing on the sidewalk. Figures I'd run into people I knew. I've walked that path a million times and this is the first time I've seen people I know. My friends, my students. I wiped furiously at my eyes and slid my lips off my teeth in what may have passed for a smile.

I've been pretty composed today, surprisingly. Something about her death being peaceful, about it not being sudden or shocking, was nice. I didn't quite realize that she was so near death, so it did seem a little surprising, but it had been a long time in coming.

I wish I could write more about this, but the temperature is falling again, as it goes in the path of grief.