Benjamin Simon writes of his grandmother

When I think of Grandma Joyce, two words come to mind: writer’s block. I spent several weeks thinking, “What shall I write about her? Her generosity? Her family? Her love of Europe, specifically Prague? The numerous Prague t-shirts which have amounted in my drawers over the past few years, all purchased by her? The numerous teachers which have thought that I have been to Prague several times, due to the fact that I constantly wear hoodies to school about said city? The lingering fear in the back of my mind, that I might one day visit Prague and not actually like it?” By this point, I would be reduced to paranoid idiot, mumbling some gibberish, and forget entirely about writing this passage. So I will start at the beginning.
Everything about Grandma Joyce was routine. Every time she came down, she would instantly sit down on the living room couch. We would talk about things like, “How was the drive?” and, “Do you want a drink?” and, “Do you think Clinton will be impeached?” (remember, this tradition started a long while back.) Then, she would present me and my brother Joel with two gifts: 1) a t-shirt, or other form of clothing from her latest trip, and 2) a souvenir from her latest trip, ranging from chocolate to refrigerator magnets. If she didn’t have anything to get us, then she would apologize for the lack of gifts, in stark contrast to the usual apologizing for the lack of things to make up for her generosity, by us.
Then, we would go on day trips, shopping trips, trips into D.C., etc. And the whole time, she would try to buy us anything that she could see. To this day, I’m not sure if she actually thought we wanted those things, or if she was just being nice. Either way, there was not a kinder soul from here to India, where Mahatma Gandhi once lived.
She always knew how to crack a joke. Whenever some political thing happened, a witty line appeared in her head, which was clever enough to be hilarious, but tame enough to be tasteful. She would always be the toast of the evening during cocktail hour.
If there is one regret I have, it is that we never went to Prague together. In the later years of her life, she would often mention that she was going to take us all on a big trip to the Czech Republic. I remember that one night, I was sitting to dinner, and dad walked in. He said that he had something to tell us, and announced solemnly that Grandma Joyce had a tumor. I asked what a tumor was, and when he told me, it took about five minutes for the truth to sink in. I went upstairs and cried my eyes out. Now, this is sad, but this also shows something. I was not crying over the eventual loss of a grandparent, or a lifetime of gifts, or a big trip to Europe. I was crying over the loss of her. That shows one thing: it was not her relation to us that made us love her, it was her character. And that is worth a million trips to Europe.