I have told this story several times in the past couple of months, and I keep feeling prompted to tell it again, so I figger I might as well just make it public. My grandmother--my mother's mother--was my childhood angel. She was the one stable influence in a tumultuous childhood, and the main reason that I grew up with any self-esteem at all. She instilled in me a sense of my own worth, just by loving me--and showing it. As she aged, her hair went completely white, and her demeanor became even more and more gentle and kind. At 78, after a slip on the kitchen linoleum while chasing a great grand toddler, she was just beginning to slow down--but not much. I was twenty, with a month-old baby. When my sister called to tell me that Grandma had passed away, I was stunned, but not wholly surprised. My silent tears came quickly, and I asked, "How? Did she die in her sleep?" "No...." came the hesitant reply. "She was walking with a friend, across the cul-de...