My Nana
My nana was the best. No, really—she was. She was just a good person: she was an outstanding wife, an amazing mother, and the best grandmother. She became a top-notch great-grandmother, although she didn’t get to celebrate that role nearly as long as she would have liked. If you liked a person, she did her damndest to like them, too. She wasn’t judgy. She was kind. She had the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met. She gave good hugs. She gave hugs with her words. Whatever you needed, she had, and she wouldn’t hesitate to give it to you. She was strong, both emotionally and physically—this is the woman who, in her 70s, was literally singlehandedly using a mechanical Hoyer lift to get my grandfather out of bed AND THEN transferring him wheelchair to car and back. IYKYK.
Life can be cruel. The woman who spent her entire life taking care of others spent her last few years needing to be taken care of. As her granddaughter, it was painful to see how her Parkinson’s was changing her: she sometimes forgot our names; she sometimes forgot where she was; she would sometimes forget what she was doing while she was doing it. She was increasingly fatigued and sleepy.
Most hours of the day were spent in her favorite chair. When you love someone, you only want the best for them, and when you can’t fix it or make it right, it’s a gut punch. Working in healthcare, specifically in rehabilitation, I made recommendations about equipment, therapies, and exercises. Sometimes they worked; as the disease progressed, they mostly didn’t. But I never stopped trying, along with my family, to fill all of her days with happiness.
She filled my life with happiness. My childhood is full of wonderful memories of Nana and Pop. I remember VHS tapes of “Full House” episodes in my younger years and Grey’s Anatomy in college. I remember books full of paper dolls and boxes of Polly Pockets. I remember fully furnished doll houses. I remember drawers full of costume jewelry. I remember MTV and “Ren and Stimpy”. I remember “Grice Christmas” with packages of American Girl outfits and accessories in my elementary years, and posters of Ben Affleck and Gustavo Kuerten when I hit my teens. I remember weeklong visits in the winter and summer. I remember her never asking anything of me other than to enjoy myself when I was visiting.
In my adult years, I remember trekking between Albany and Washingtonville, laundry in my back seat. When I lived in New York, I spent one weekend a month with them, doing laundry, being fed homecooked meals, and just being a spoiled grandchild (isn’t it the best?). My grandparents would go to the grocery store and get paper bags for me to tote my clean laundry in. I didn’t deserve them—I’m still not sure I do. My grandmother remembered all my friends, even if she had only met them once. She remembered details about them and asked the right questions. She sent meaningful gifts, sometimes for no other reason than seeing something that made her think of you. She wrote lovely cards. She loved Tom Selleck. She loved women’s magazines and her daily devotionals. She gave a beautiful reading at my wedding. She loved my husband. She loved my son. She loved me.
My grandmother was smart. She was emotionally intelligent and book smart. She was a phenomenal dancer. She was well-travelled. She was worldly, and she was wise. She was curious, and she was self-aware. She was a collector of dolls and other items that sparked her joy. She was loved deeply, and she never hesitated to tell you how much she cared for you. Her love for her family was palpable. It’s that love that I will carry with me now that she’s not down the street from me, because that kind of love doesn’t die when a person’s heart stops beating. It lives on in your heart, in your soul, and in their spirit.