Untitled but Remembered

I can remember my grandma telling me, somewhat jokingly, when I was little that she knew she was old when her friends started to die. She told me that, one day, I would feel that, too. But I doubt she had my seventeen-year-old self in mind. Yet, I have only experienced the loss of one person my age. That was hard, but somehow, losing people who I am close to who are also much closer to an age at which it is appropriate to die, has been astronomically harder. Perhaps it is because those who we expect to die soon we have much longer periods to accumulate sadness for than those who die suddenly. Two people I have dearly respected have died in the last six months, one of whom I considered almost a grandmother and one of whom I considered a hero. Mortality has never troubled me greatly; I'm not worried about souls or people being forgotten, but I am worried about making sure the people who didn't get to know these women know what they did. My surrogate grandmother died at five this morning and my grandmother, mother, and I have been charged with finishing her present to her newborn granddaughter. We are building a dollhouse, because Meredith needs to know her grandmother and know how much she was loved.