Growing up, you were always there for me: every pageant, every musical...you were in the audience holding up your iPad to get the best pictures. Turns out your iPad blocked everyone else's view but you never cared because you were too busy being a proud grandma. We spent every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter together. I got so used to you being around for everything important in my life.

Until you weren't...

It was so abrupt, so sudden. My parents didn't want to tell me because I had an AP Psychology test the next day but deep down I knew something was wrong. I nagged my mom until she told me, and at first I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that you were gone.

This past year has been the best year, the hardest year, and the most important year in my life so far, and I wish you were here. I wish I could have called you the moment I got accepted to my dream college. I wish you were in the audience cheering for me when my name got called at my high school graduation. Although I know you are watching all of this from above, it's hard not having you here.

The holidays have been especially hard. Last Thanksgiving was the first holiday without you at the table with us. It seemed empty, like we were missing something, and we were. Christmas was even more difficult. You always found unique, sometimes odd, gifts just for Arianna and I. They were almost always from somewhere in Door County.

That's another thing... Door County. Your favorite place. The little ranch house on the lake was always a place of solitude for me, but I am afraid to go back. I have all good memories there: painting rocks, finding toads in the lake out back, laying in a hammock between trees in the backyard, which you called the front. But ever since you passed away in that house, I can not go back. Probably because if I go back the place that used to be my place of solitude will now be another reminder that you are gone. It's almost poetic that you left your life on this earth in your favorite place, God knew it was your time to come home.

One day I will marry the man I love, and while I know you will be watching from above, I really hoped you would be around to attend my wedding, to meet my children and be a great-grandma.

When I started to write this I knew it would be hard, but I ended up completely breaking down, and that's okay. That's okay because I miss you and after a whole year without you I am missing you more than ever. More years will go by, and I can guarantee I will keep missing you more and more. Your goofy laugh, your contagious smile, your passion for your family, I miss it all. I miss you, grandma.