memories of my grandmother

I'm not sure what my first memory of my grandmother is. I know she was there, weeks after I was born, helping to take care of me in Palmyra, Virginia, where our neighbors would shoot squirrels and give them to us, leaving us to dry them on our clothes line.
The memories of my grandmother are many and often wrapped in music and art and laughter. She was the one who tried to teach me to play the piano, who encouraged me to pursue art, or whatever the equivalent was to me, who spoke to me of her world travels, of Italy and Sweden and Germany. She was one of the few people who would listen to me when I was a self-righteous teenager; she was the one who woke at 4 a.m., just before we would pull out of the driveway of my grandparents' home in Illinois, to stuff us with toast and cheese and salami. She and my grandfather would stand in the doorway, wave goodbye, and I would cry, even then, even when I was five, because I knew how long it would be until we saw them again.
Waving goodbye to my grandmother now is even harder, because I will never see her again. My grandmother died Tuesday, and I can't really grasp that when I fly into Chicago O'Hare next weekend, she will not be there, waiting for me, ready to tell me about her newest painting or a new rosemalling partner.
I love you, Grandma. I miss you.