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My grandmother had a stroke last thursday. My mom's mom. Her name is Elaine, but we all call her Honey (you can call her Honey too). She is 92 and has lived a long and beautiful life. Her son died just before I was born, and in the wake of his loss she devoted herself entirely to me and my brother. We have always been fiercely close. I won't try to tell you everything about her now, but just know that she is something special. She used to come to our house every day after school and watch my brother and I and feed us lays potato chips. When I moved up to middle school, I would walk to her apartment on my way home and pick her wild flowers from the field around the empty office park. She is the first person I ever heard say a curse word. She made the quilt that I sleep under every night. She has cancelled on my brother for dinner multiple times in the past year because she got a better invitation. She got me addicted to coffee at 12.

She's been pretty out of it for the last couple of days. The clot was pretty massive, and compounding on her parkinsons, she has pretty extensive brain damage. It has been very difficult standing over her in the ICU hoping to feel her squeeze my hand so i would know that she knew that I was there with her. She can't swallow, so she's on a temporary feeding tube right now. I spent all afternoon yestarday swabbing down the dry sores in her mouth with a damp sponge. I hadn't heard her say my name since before the stroke--i hadn't heard her say much of anything, really. Between sponges she said "I'm sad."

Today she was a lot better--the feeding tube is clearly helping her regain a lot of strength. And she is nothing if not a fighter. I sat with her this afternoon and she said my name, and we communicated through a strange sort of habitual telepathy where I would guess the story she was trying to get out but couldn't form the words for, and she would nod as I told it to my dad and her nurse. She squeezed my hand and made me show her pictures of my junior prom dress on her ipad. It's still hard to understand her, but there is one thing that she desperately wants more than anything else in the world. In her gurgled speech, she said to me "you know what I want."

Coke. She wants a coke. A small can of cold diet coke, and a straw. She's asked for it more than for anything else. She asks every 15 minutes. She made me look for one in her handbag. She wants a coke. She wants a coke. She can't have a coke, of course, she can't even suck on an ice chip. She's too weak to swallow still. But I don't know if I have ever felt more hers in my life. Anyone who knows me knows my deep affection for coca cola--I would do just about anything for a can of ice cold coke. And I know that she would, too. Because I am hers--I am her blood, she helped to raise me, she made me who I am. And who I am is a coke lover. Because so is she.

So if any of you see me drinking a coke any time soon, I don't want to hear a word about my rotting teeth. There is coke in my blood, and there is nothing that can change that.