The Red Crane

In 2008, my grandmother was diagnosed esophageal cancer. In the months following her diagnosis, the toll the disease took on my family was phenomenal. She was fading and suffering and we watched helplessly as it happened.

I wanted to do something special for her; something that might possibly make her get well. At the time, I had never experienced a serious illness in anyone close to me so I didn't quite understand the depth of the situation. I believed I could heal her with love and thoughts.

I decided to fold an origami crane for her each day until she got better. Each morning, I would fold a crane and my mother would take it to my grandmother's hospital room. She would hang the cranes all over the room and my grandmother loved them. One in particular, a red crane, was her favorite. I folded hundreds of cranes for my grandmother and no matter what, the red crane remained her favorite.
A few months before my grandmother's death, she requested that she be buried with the red crane.

In September 2009, my grandmother died after slipping into a non-responsive state. As happy as I was that she was out of suffering, I missed her terribly. I was pregnant with my first child and hoping she would live long enough to hold my baby.

At her funeral, I put the red crane in her casket and said good bye. This was probably the hardest experience of my life.

In my mind, the crane flew my grandmother to Heaven. The thought makes missing her a little more bearable.