I wrote about it here before - my girlfriend, Jennifer Reimer, a beautiful and brilliant young woman who was nonetheless plagued by demons, died at 30 years old April 14, 2014.

Last week, I lost another beautiful angel - my grandmother, Dodie, Doris Kildall. I have had to lose two loved ones, from slow motion health decline factors, in less than six months. I'm not apologetic to anyone who feels offended by anything I say or do at this point - they can do it themselves and tell me what I've done wrong.

Dodie was 95 years old. She was old already when I was only a kid. Dodie honestly put as much in to this life and survived as hard as anyone could ever be expected to. She mothered several children, of whom mothered and fathered people like me. Dodie was a trooper - I held out that she would continue on last week despite my mom saying it was "the end." I had heard that several times and Dodie had continued on, denying death and staying one of the most lively at her nursing home. Even with heart failure, dementia and bouts of pneumonia she smiled enduringly, as you can see in this picture of me with her:

Dodie was born 1919 in the area around Roswell, New Mexico. She spent most of her life in Seattle or the surrounding Seattle area. In her late 60s and early 70s, when I was coming around, she had a nice apartment in University District area of Seattle. My mom was a single mother who was taking on a Master's Degree - she didn't have time to have me around all of the time. I adored Dodie's place, even if it smelled of cigarette smoke all around. She had a snow globe that I played with over and over - pretending that I was the ruler of the tiny town inside.

There is a drug store in Seattle called Bartell Drugs. There's been one in University Village as long as I've been alive and even after the area there got gentrified. Dodie used to take me there and buy me trading cars. The X-Men cartoon on Fox was very big then and I got the whole set of Marvel Comics cards that fit in to a big puzzle. Dodie was so nice - I was only four years old and she barely knew me but she knew that I loved the X-Men.

One of my friends, Norma, says that Dodie used to tell her stories. I have been around Dodie alot - probably more in her later years than anyone in my family except my mom. Dodie took care of Norma a few times at the student housing my mom lived in back in the early 90s. I remember, before she died early this year, I took Jennifer to see my childhood home in Blakeley where I grew up. I did that just because we were so close to it but having took Jennifer to see such a sacred place in my own life was certainly incredible. There's a synchronicity to it, I hope. Jen and Dodie both had their own torments and demons, which I will only hint at it here but they both were loved. They are out of their pain now and in a much better place.

Dodie had some issues of her own - issues which I'll only go in to a little bit in this essay out of respect and privacy. I never saw it in action but she did suffer from mental illness, as did Jennifer. Alot of people were resentful to her or seemed to see her as a burden. My mom was the only of her children who came to visit her regularly or took on the burden of taking care of her enough to put her in a nursing home to begin with.

Sometimes my mom was less than nice to Dodie. My mom and I still visited her frequently and I did so a few times on my own as well - I am very glad to have done so, as many people neglect their elders with a galling lack of respect. Nevertheless, when Dodie died, one of my best friends from childhood called me and flooded me with memories of how Dodie had taken care of us as kids. She loved all of us. She was a trooper. She was one of the best women I'll ever know.

Bye bye Dodie, my angel.