Sad News
My sister called me just before eleven last night to let me know that our grandmother had died. Bobby had left not fifteen minutes before for pickup hockey, so we kept each other company on the phone until he got home just before one. (Thank you, Sharon! *hugs*) When I was very young, my grandmother was told that her heart condition left her with only six months to live, so while I feel lucky to have been granted this extra twenty-or-so years, I am also coming to the slow realization that someone I loved very dearly is no longer alive with me, and this is an emotion that refuses to hear logic or reason.
Nanny was my last surviving grandparent after my grandfather died last October. I admit to selfishly resenting that I am only twenty-four years old and have lost all of my grandparents, with my maternal grandfather dying before I was even born and my maternal grandmother inaccessible through my childhood because of the fact that my step-grandfather was a child molester. Nanny and Pop-pop were what I had, and I was fortunate to be near enough geographically to become close to both of them in life. In college, Bobby and I would visit them regularly in the retirement home, and I find myself thinking of those times, of funny moments and things said, and such memories are both painful and comforting at this time.
Nanny hasn't been doing well for years...but she'd been "dying" so many times before that when my mom told me on Christmas that this would probably be her last Christmas, I didn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it--and why should I? Wasn't she already twenty years past her time? And how many near misses had she had before? She'd even been "dead" a couple of times but resuscitated without trouble.
From my grandmother, I get my fire and my stubborn temperament, and my parents used to tease her and say that she would never die because God knew she would take over. "He's not ready for you yet!" they used to tell her. My dad is the same way: obstinate, opionated, loud (although I prefer "projecting"), and my mom tells him, "You're just like your mother!" and tells me, "You're just like your father! And grandmother!" So the next time I'm ranting senselessly against some injustice, smile and remember her.
Nanny used to tell me that she would be happy once she saw Bobby and I get married. I was so happy when we decided to forgo a big, arduous wedding for a small, simple courthouse ceremony, in part because it meant that she'd made it: that Nanny would get to see us get married. And she did. You can see her sitting right up front in most of our pictures. The last time we visited, I told her about my business plans, and she said, "Maybe I'll live to invest in your company!" And I really hoped that she would. My grandparents owned a corner grocery store, and while I know that people might scoff at them for their affluence now, every cent of their money was earned through their own hard work. Their store--and they--survived riots. My grandfather lost his first $100 in the Great Depression. Still, they never gave up, and I hope that Nelyo's is a legacy to what they inspired in me.
I will always remember sitting on the couch with Bobby, while Pop-pop asked, "Dawn, have you done your taxes yet?"...in December.
And Nanny talking about her "other condo"--meaning her space in the masoleum--and telling Bobby and I to come and visit her and bring her a piece of cake.
Or, when I was unemployed for the month and a half before starting here and used to go with my dad to take Nanny shopping every week, the way he used to turn up the "Strokin'" song when she got in the car, and she would exclaim, "Oh, Norman! Such filth!"
And her rhyme: "Here comes the spider up the wall...down it falls!" that prefaced severe tickling with her rock-hard fingernails, fingernails that I have inherited, that are hard to convince people aren't fake. She liked to do this in elevators, when you couldn't escape.
With my other grandparents, I had time to prepare. When Pop-pop died, it was almost a relief. I did my grieving over the four weeks that he was in the hospital. But this was sudden, and I think on it at times and feel a pain like stabbing, like I'd forgotten--or maybe wished--that quickly she's really gone. Because it seems that a person like Nanny should never die.
Nanny was my last surviving grandparent after my grandfather died last October. I admit to selfishly resenting that I am only twenty-four years old and have lost all of my grandparents, with my maternal grandfather dying before I was even born and my maternal grandmother inaccessible through my childhood because of the fact that my step-grandfather was a child molester. Nanny and Pop-pop were what I had, and I was fortunate to be near enough geographically to become close to both of them in life. In college, Bobby and I would visit them regularly in the retirement home, and I find myself thinking of those times, of funny moments and things said, and such memories are both painful and comforting at this time.
Nanny hasn't been doing well for years...but she'd been "dying" so many times before that when my mom told me on Christmas that this would probably be her last Christmas, I didn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it--and why should I? Wasn't she already twenty years past her time? And how many near misses had she had before? She'd even been "dead" a couple of times but resuscitated without trouble.
From my grandmother, I get my fire and my stubborn temperament, and my parents used to tease her and say that she would never die because God knew she would take over. "He's not ready for you yet!" they used to tell her. My dad is the same way: obstinate, opionated, loud (although I prefer "projecting"), and my mom tells him, "You're just like your mother!" and tells me, "You're just like your father! And grandmother!" So the next time I'm ranting senselessly against some injustice, smile and remember her.
Nanny used to tell me that she would be happy once she saw Bobby and I get married. I was so happy when we decided to forgo a big, arduous wedding for a small, simple courthouse ceremony, in part because it meant that she'd made it: that Nanny would get to see us get married. And she did. You can see her sitting right up front in most of our pictures. The last time we visited, I told her about my business plans, and she said, "Maybe I'll live to invest in your company!" And I really hoped that she would. My grandparents owned a corner grocery store, and while I know that people might scoff at them for their affluence now, every cent of their money was earned through their own hard work. Their store--and they--survived riots. My grandfather lost his first $100 in the Great Depression. Still, they never gave up, and I hope that Nelyo's is a legacy to what they inspired in me.
I will always remember sitting on the couch with Bobby, while Pop-pop asked, "Dawn, have you done your taxes yet?"...in December.
And Nanny talking about her "other condo"--meaning her space in the masoleum--and telling Bobby and I to come and visit her and bring her a piece of cake.
Or, when I was unemployed for the month and a half before starting here and used to go with my dad to take Nanny shopping every week, the way he used to turn up the "Strokin'" song when she got in the car, and she would exclaim, "Oh, Norman! Such filth!"
And her rhyme: "Here comes the spider up the wall...down it falls!" that prefaced severe tickling with her rock-hard fingernails, fingernails that I have inherited, that are hard to convince people aren't fake. She liked to do this in elevators, when you couldn't escape.
With my other grandparents, I had time to prepare. When Pop-pop died, it was almost a relief. I did my grieving over the four weeks that he was in the hospital. But this was sudden, and I think on it at times and feel a pain like stabbing, like I'd forgotten--or maybe wished--that quickly she's really gone. Because it seems that a person like Nanny should never die.