Ray's sister-in-law, who'd also spent the week caring for my grandmother with great tenderness, told Ray to tell GrandMary what all the grandchildren were doing. So Ray went through all 18 grandchildren and all eight great-grandchildren and what they were doing with their lives, assuring her that everyone was all right.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of Norah downstairs screaming and my sister trying to feed her. I had a choice to make. I could go see GrandMary or I could check on my daughter who was in a rage. I knew GrandMary would have checked on Norah, so I went into the kitchen to feed her breakfast.

A few minutes later, Aunt Sally came into the room and said, "Come on! It's time. She's either passing now or she's just passed." We flew into the room. She was curled up in the same position but no longer breathing. Her ear lobes had retracted completely. Her body was still warm. My aunt tried to find a pulse. She called, "Mom! Mom! Mom!" We all started crying. Norah reached for her. It was the first day of October.

The wake lasted for three days. My husband flew in with our two older children for the funeral. Our 10-year-old son, Flannery, insisted on joining the older cousins as a pallbearer. Our 8-year-old daughter, Lucy, wept in my arms for her great-grandmother. Then she asked, "Why haven't I made my First Communion yet?" I could hear GrandMary saying to me, "Go back to church."

GrandMary had requested to be wheeled down the side aisle in her casket and up to the center aisle to the altar with all her family following her through the church. We followed the casket singing, "Let There Be Peace on Earth," only in the program there was a typo, "Let There Be Pearce on Earth." Flannery noticed it and pointed it out during the service. My mother told him to never mind about it.

A few hours later, at the country cemetery by the graveside, the weather turned chilly. The sun disappeared as Monsignor quickly blessed the grave with holy water. My father bent over and kissed his mother's coffin and said, "Bye Mama. I love you." Aunt Sally and Uncle Lefty did the same, followed by all the grandchildren and great grandchildren. There was a meal in the church refectory -- plenty of Jell-O molds, macaroni salads, casseroles, tea and coffee. The limousine drivers ate together at one table, Monsignor and some of the priests at another.

Norah had caught a fever, which was gone now but had left her covered with a roseola rash. I walked with her back out to the graveside. Wind had already knocked over some of the vases of flowers. I wondered when I would come back here again. They said her headstone might be inscribed with, "All my love, GrandMary" because that's how she always signed everything.

It was a searingly hot August when I was 13 and knelt in the same place for my grandfather, whose death had been sudden. It was a bitter January when I was 17 and stood in the snow in the same place for my uncle, who had committed suicide. Now I was 37 and grateful for the peaceful autumn afternoon. I was grateful that this gentle woman got to have a gentle death surrounded by people who adored her. I wrapped Norah tightly in her blanket, knelt down and touched the grave. Then I left GrandMary to rest between her husband and her son.

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