Grandma Hodapp did not stay in her little one bedroom apartment for long. Her health deteriorated, and she was placed in a nursing home in Austin. The winter I was fourteen, my dad took me to visit her there, and this was the last time I saw her.

I remember very little of this visit but that my grandmother was too tiny, too fragile to sit up. Someone had sent her a gift box of Russell Stover's chocolates for the holidays, and Dad and I passed it between us. The chocolate tasted bitter; I could not enjoy it in this place. Somewhere out in the corridor someone moaned for a nurse, and a stooped old man in a robe and slippers shuffled by the open door of Grandma's room, pausing to peer suspiciously in at us.

Even from her bed, Grandma was a gracious hostess, full of elegance and polish. Years prior, just before she was diagnosed with osteoporosis, doctors had taken a sample of her bone marrow. This, I have heard, is an extremely painful extraction during which many patients scream out. My grandmother, however, simply dabbed away a tear or two with the lace hanky she always kept tucked away in her sleeve.

I remember being upset with the nurse who came in to give Grandma her medication.

Lillian, how are you today? Time for your pills! He held my grandma's head up so she could swallow them.

She smiled and thanked him, and he smiled back, wished us all Happy Holidays, then wheeled his cart towards the next room. But I was angry.

My grandmother's name is not Lillian. Too formal. Her name is Lil. Call her Lil like everyone else.