I couldn’t bear to be sad with grandma. She always hated garish sentiment.

But these were her last hours and I needed her to know what she had meant to me.

As I sat with her, holding her hand, eyes barely open, the sheet over her chest still moving, I took the old book out of my purse and held it up to her.

The book she had read to me over and over when I was a child. “The Dragon and His Blue Sportcoat.”

I tapped a finger on the book cover. Then I pointed the same finger over my heart.

A tear sprung from her eye and she smiled.