LJ Idol - Season 8, Week 5
I have only ever known one of grandparents. There were others, of course but by the time I was born only one remained - my maternal grandmother (and namesake), Margaret.
My parents divorced before I was out of diapers. My father remarried when before I started school and moved out of town to start his second family. My mother was left with a brand new mortgage and three hungry mouths. That’s where my Nan stepped in.
A widow herself, she knew how hard it was to be a single mother, and took up the role of second parent to my two brothers and I. Hosting Sunday dinners and every holiday and birthday celebration, collecting us when we were too sick to stay at school, looking after us when my mother had to work or needed time for herself. Nan would sweep me up in stories from her youth as a professional opera singer as she taught me how to make cheese blintzes and hold myself with confidence. It seemed she knew just how a lady should act, and made sure I knew it too.
When she retired instead of slowing down and enjoying the easy life I soon saw that she was just beginning a new life. She travelled to Hawaii, Antigua and the United Kingdom. She drove herself across the mammoth province of Ontario to visit her sister and daughter. She took up Aquafit lessons and enjoyed it so much that when her young, twenty-something instructor told her she wouldn’t be able to teach anymore she organized and taught the group herself. She was a Scottish Presbyterian who has lived through the depression and the Second World War - she is as tough as they come. Nothing could stop her if she put her mind to something.
Until now.
Two weeks ago she was diagnosed with kidney cancer. It’s spread to her lungs.
While I sit in shock she continues to bake and run errands, her mood not even the slightest bit changed. She does talk more about her will and has taken to encouraging me to be vocal about things of hers I’d like to keep, though she keeps it under the guise of if she needs to ‘sell her house.’
I have since moved away from my hometown, so I don’t see her daily or weekly, like I used to. I have no idea what the physical effects this thing is having on her. I refuse to think of her as a frail old woman. I can’t even picture it. Instead I picture her as the youthful looking woman in her 60’s, picking me up from school or taking me to the cottage. Or, better yet, I picture her as I’ve seen her in old photos: a gorgeous twenty year old with an equally beautiful voice and a long line of suitors.
I just can’t fathom my 86 year old grandmother, who has had so many lives and taught me so much, as one of those fragile-looking people in the cancer ward.
My parents divorced before I was out of diapers. My father remarried when before I started school and moved out of town to start his second family. My mother was left with a brand new mortgage and three hungry mouths. That’s where my Nan stepped in.
A widow herself, she knew how hard it was to be a single mother, and took up the role of second parent to my two brothers and I. Hosting Sunday dinners and every holiday and birthday celebration, collecting us when we were too sick to stay at school, looking after us when my mother had to work or needed time for herself. Nan would sweep me up in stories from her youth as a professional opera singer as she taught me how to make cheese blintzes and hold myself with confidence. It seemed she knew just how a lady should act, and made sure I knew it too.
When she retired instead of slowing down and enjoying the easy life I soon saw that she was just beginning a new life. She travelled to Hawaii, Antigua and the United Kingdom. She drove herself across the mammoth province of Ontario to visit her sister and daughter. She took up Aquafit lessons and enjoyed it so much that when her young, twenty-something instructor told her she wouldn’t be able to teach anymore she organized and taught the group herself. She was a Scottish Presbyterian who has lived through the depression and the Second World War - she is as tough as they come. Nothing could stop her if she put her mind to something.
Until now.
Two weeks ago she was diagnosed with kidney cancer. It’s spread to her lungs.
While I sit in shock she continues to bake and run errands, her mood not even the slightest bit changed. She does talk more about her will and has taken to encouraging me to be vocal about things of hers I’d like to keep, though she keeps it under the guise of if she needs to ‘sell her house.’
I have since moved away from my hometown, so I don’t see her daily or weekly, like I used to. I have no idea what the physical effects this thing is having on her. I refuse to think of her as a frail old woman. I can’t even picture it. Instead I picture her as the youthful looking woman in her 60’s, picking me up from school or taking me to the cottage. Or, better yet, I picture her as I’ve seen her in old photos: a gorgeous twenty year old with an equally beautiful voice and a long line of suitors.
I just can’t fathom my 86 year old grandmother, who has had so many lives and taught me so much, as one of those fragile-looking people in the cancer ward.