Staff member Liberty Trupke is pictured above with her Nana, cousin, and sister.

I heard once that you never truly know what you have until it’s gone. Sometimes they talk about how many chips are left in the bag or how many sodas are left in the box. Sometimes it’s the last drops of the perfume bottle or the last few pages of a heartbreaking novel. Sometimes it’s people – the ones you love most.   

December of 2018 was the month I was told that my Nana was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier that same year. I didn’t know it at the time, being only eight, that it’s one of the most difficult cancers to cure. She had approximately a 13% chance to survive, but I was sure she would. I was sure that her determination and strength would help her power through this sickness.  

They told her she had time. She had time to tie up loose ends, do what she wanted to do, and live as well as she could before she passed.  

I remember that she had promised me and my sister that she would come over next Christmas. She would be there to make breakfast, watch us open gifts, and spend the day showering us with love. She wanted that time with me and my sister. That time to make sure we knew how much she cared about us even though she was slowly slipping away.  

That Christmas she wasn’t there. She died Dec. 18, 2019, at the age of 57. Not even three times my current age. The last gift I opened under the tree that morning was from her. A pastel blue Polaroid camera, film, and stickers to put around the edges. She gave me the ability to capture moments forever. Not on a phone or anything digital. A physical reminder of times I wanted to cherish for the rest of my life. Sadly, none would ever include her. 

It’s odd, having a constant in your life suddenly gone. When she was first diagnosed, nothing changed. She smiled, laughed, and spent time with us like normal. Then it all went downhill very fast. One moment we were watching a movie, eating a big dinner family dinner where she made sure we ate our vegetables, or knocking on her door during Halloween. The next moment, my sister and I are singing Christmas carols to a motionless Nana. The nurses told us that she could hear us singing but was too tired to open her eyes or to speak. So, we let her rest, repeating the same tunes we’d heard in her Hallmark movies thousands of times. 

I will never forget sitting in the front pew of a church my Nana never attended. Wearing a scratchy wine-colored dress and listening to a preacher, who never knew her, talk about her in the past tense while hot tears ran down my face. I didn’t feel real until that moment. It didn’t feel like she was truly gone until I was standing in a room full of people, some family, some not, and looking at the closed casket across the wide-open room.  

It’s been six years since I’ve seen my Nana, but there are still ways I keep her with me. I wear the perfume that I used to think of as “old lady” perfume, keep hold of one of her favorite scrunchies because I’ve convinced myself it gives me good luck, wear her ring, and look for cardinals everywhere I go.  

Although she won’t be there for my graduation, wedding, or when I have a family of my own, I know she’ll be looking out for me. I know that she would have been proud of me and my sister for everything we’ve done since she passed. With every move I make, and will make, I hope that it is something she would have congratulated me on. Because no matter what, here with me physically or not, I know that she loves me every single day.