Janie, Your grandmom sounds like a true treasure. You're lucky to have known her.

I had to sing for my friend Linda Lieberman, it was a song I wrote for her after her death. The first thing I did was sing it as often as I could ahead of time, for friends who knew her. I did my crying then. The best piece of advice was "Rita, you will be singing this for the other people who are there. A lot of people may cry while you are singing it, but You can not cry. You are there for them." It was what I needed to hold in my mind.