My grandmother Marjorie died last night. She was a pretty amazing lady: well-known hematologist, author and editor, birder and naturalist, accomplished musician, cancer survivor, mother of four, and grandmother of eight. A couple good stories about her:

Though it was before I was born, my parents tell of when there was a groundhog nosing around the garden in Sharon and eating the plants. My grandfather shot it, and my grandmother, not wanting to be wasteful, made a stew out of it and made everyone eat it. Not so sad I wasn’t around for that one.

When I was three or four, my parents left my brother and me with my grandparents for a week to go on vacation, right around my birthday. She’d made me a cake, and in the process of making the frosting, left the beaters on when she took the mixer out and got some on the ceiling. My brother, over the course of the week, being a toddler, took a spill and scratched up his face, superficially, but dramatically. Then, my parents’ plane was delayed, so my grandparents had to take off before my folks got home, and they left us with a neighbor. My parents returned to an empty home with chocolate on the kitchen ceiling and a note, written by Marjorie, that said something like “Had to go. Sorry about Matt’s face.” No mention of where we were or anything, just “sorry about Matt’s face.”

She’ll be missed.