Today would have been my grandmother’s 77th birthday. She passed away a year ago March, and it’s still hard. There are still days I reach for the phone to call her, or can’t wait to share something with her, and then I remember she’s gone.

What most people don’t know is that I got a lot of great ideas when we would talk. She even helped with some of the titles for my Intergalactic Brides series. Of course, I don’t think she was being serious when she told me I should write an alien biker story, but I said “challenge accepted” and wrote Hazel and the Alien Biker.

She would call every week and ask how the books were doing, what I was writing at the moment, and just to talk in general. The rest of my family takes a mild interest in my work, but my grandmother was different, probably because she was a writer too. She wrote for the DeSoto Magazine in Hernando, Mississippi, and she was also working on a romance novel. I’m sad that her novel will never be finished, as she was very excited about it. She wanted to self-publish it and would devour every article she could find on the subject and then call me to talk about it.

My grandmother will be forever missed, not only by me but by the rest of the family and her friends as well. However, she will never be forgotten. She had this way of drawing people to her, putting everyone at ease, and then laughing with them like they’d been best friends for years. And she listened when you talked.

So, Meemaw, if you’re paying attention, I love you and miss you. Hope you have a happy birthday!