I was probably 12 or 13 years old. It was summer vacation, and I was at what I jokingly called “Jesus Camp.” It was a week-long summer camp with children of the Episcopal Church from around the Pacific Northwest. On this particular night we had gathered outside under a shelter for an evening mass. To me, not being particularly religious, it was a spiritual only in that I was sharing reflective moments with my peers. After the service, the group gathered around a fire, and we were instructed to write down on a small piece of paper something that we were going to let go of. A few weeks prior I had paid my last visit to my mother’s grandfather, and in his condition he hardly knew who I was. He was weak in mind and body, admitted to the hospital, and it was clear that he was living his final days. And so, knowing that his life would soon be over, I wrote ‘Great Grandpa’ on my paper and watched it burn away in the fire. I felt grief, but also a sense of relief. I had released my great grandfather and allowed him to become a memory. A few days later I returned home, and my mother had that look in her eyes that said ‘something happened.’ I sat on the couch next to her and she said ‘Grandpa died.’ She played back an old voicemail that she had kept from him and we both cried.