10:29 she took her last breath

I lost my Grandma yesterday

Hi everyone.

So this is a very raw moment. My grandmother, Viola Ladell Moore, passed away yesterday morning in what was the worst version of every nightmare I’ve had about this moment.

So I write to you today at the beginning of grief. I’m sad. I’m angry. I’m empty. And while maybe this isn’t the first thing I should have done…making things is the only way I know how to make it through things.

So, I appreciate this space to be able to write to you in the best of times and the worst.

And today, the day after, feels closer to the worst.

In other news. The next couple of essays will be ones I’ve had lined up for weeks. First an essay called “Dear, American Dream” on July 2nd and the “What if Mr. Rodgers was in the Marvel Universe?” on July 16th.

They are less trendy and more ever green topics which will give me some time away with my family as we grieve the loss of Grandma.

Thanks, y’all

Dom.

---

It was warm.
Sky blue.
Sunny.
The air felt like it was softly touching me,
like her hand had slipped into the wind
just to brush my head.

I started playing the music from The Remember Balloons at 10:05. She loved that show.

She left us at 10:29.

At the final note of New Balloons—
the quiet trombone solo,
the soft crash of the cymbal,
the story’s end—
she waited for it.
I swear she did.
She listened all the way through,
like she needed to hear the whole thing…
like she needed me to hear it with her.
Like she wanted to remind me,
that what I put into this world has always meant something to her.
That she was proud.
That she loved me so much,
she stayed until the music told her it was okay to go.
She left with music on her skin
and us on her heart.

I held her.
It had been so long since I held her.
I pressed my nose into her cheek,
just like I did when I was Mavy’s age—
before the world asked me to be strong,
before I knew what it meant to say goodbye
like this.

Her heart went out three times.
And then finally, we didn’t let it come back.
I had to be the one to tell my mom it was time to let her go.
To say enough, when nothing in me agreed.
To give permission for her to stop fighting.
And then, not even an hour later,
they made us pay five dollars to leave.
No grace.
No pause.
Just a machine that didn’t know she was gone.
Grief doesn’t get validated parking.

I’m sitting now beside the bed she laid in this morning.
Somehow the room feels
more full
and more empty
than I’ve ever known possible.

Death angers me.
The audacity.
The permanence.
The silence.

It angers me because she fought for six months—
through brain bleeds,
through poor healthcare,
through bed wounds that never healed,
through limbs that stopped working,
through blood infections,
delirium,
and systems that refused to see the fullness of her.
She fought.
And still, death was patient in its pursuit.
It waited.
Lurking.
Not even her strength could outrun it.
Not even her love for us could make it flinch.

She raised three generations.
And we all felt like her only child.

When we left, it started to rain.
Light tears falling from the sky.
Like she was kissing our skin one last time,
weeping with us, gently.

And now there are business calls to make.
People to tell.
It feels like draft day in the NBA.
But what I want to say is:
We are in pain.

I don’t know how to carry this.
I only know that the wind is blowing,
and it sounds like her last breath
is still trying to say something to me.

I don’t know what the days ahead will feel like.
But I know today what it means to want to be held by her again.
To hold her like I used to, nose in her cheek, her arms wrapped around me.
But today, I only have the version of her that has already slipped away.
And somehow, that is still enough to remind me
I was hers.

Dom

---