Nana

The older I get, the more I seem able to accept some changes while at the same time becoming more resistant to others. Strangely, it's the big things in life, like moving, death of a loved one, relationship changes - that I seem to flow with and accept more readily than the small things. Morning routines, small creature comforts, etc. need to be the same or I find myself feeling out of whack.

My grandmother passed away this morning. She had a massive stroke over a week ago that seems to have banished all of her identifying personality characteristics and struck her down to just a hollow shell of a human, left only with lizard-brain functions. Just enough to emulate an emotive person behind the seemingly sightless eyes and now silent mouth, but not enough to convince us she's still really there. It was a devastating thing to witness, but while we were all horrified at what she had to suffer through, I think our real horror is knowing that if she knew that we were seeing her like this, she'd be inconsolable. I know she doesn't want to be remembered that way. Nobody would. That wasn't her, it was just the remnants. As harsh as it sounds, as soon as I saw her so incapacitated, without her hair and lipstick done, all I could think was, "go to the light, Nana! You don't want to be here anymore!" I felt like there was nothing left here for her, and I wanted her suffering to end quickly. I'm surprised that I was so analytical and accepting about it, almost detached. But I think that's because I'm not going to be selfish and mourn MY loss of a grandmother, as much as I'm glad she's not suffering now, and is back with her parents, siblings and husband, whom she has dearly missed since each one departed this earth. 

So I'm going to write about how I will choose to remember her, and hope that with enough time and Malbec, I can maybe banish the memories of her last sad days from my memory forever and replace them with all of the good ones she gave me as a child.

Nana (as we called her) was trained as a hairdresser as a young lady. And make no mistake, she was a BEAUTIFUL girl anyway. All of the siblings (her 3 sisters and one brother) in that family were very good-looking, funny, and smart. I can't remember a time ever seeing Nana without her hair done perfectly. Lipstick on, when fancied up a bit for church, but never garish or attention-seeking. She was just a very proper lady. She loved to attend church, her vegetable and flower gardens, and she loved to sing. She always fostered my love of music. She loved her birds - she would watch for hours one she called "Jenny Wren" outside of her kitchen window, and tell me all about her comings and goings. Like everybody on that side of the family, along with the good sense of humor came a very stern Austrian disciplinarian side to balance it. There was to be absolutely no bs whatsoever when you were around her or her sisters. You behaved, 100% of the time. And if you didn't, you'd get a sharp word that stung, being delivered from the lips that so frequently praised and encouraged us instead. We would do anything to stay in the sunshine of their good graces. We were fortunate enough to have moved to a house right next door to Nana and Pupa when I was 6, just as my sister was being born. So I had a built-in babysitter who was family - the perfect arrangement. Or so it seemed to me, anyway. Her very opinionated personality sometimes clashed with my mother, who was always a free spirit. But this isn't exactly a newsflash, a mother-in-law not always getting along with a daughter-in-law, especially when grandchildren were involved.

One of the funniest memories (now) is how Nana would insist we kids spend the night at her house the night before school pictures were taken so she could do our hair. Remember, she was trained in styles and techniques that were about 40-50 years older than I was. Frequently, I'd end up with a frizzy perm, bowl cut, or baby bangs for my school pictures. Between the outdated, age-inappropriate hairstyles she gave us and the hippie remnant clothes my parents were still allowing me to dress in, those pictures are just stupendous. I still hide them from people some 35 years later. But she meant well and it clearly gave her great pleasure to do that for us. 

Another good memory was that on our birthdays, we'd always get a phone call and she would sing the entire "Happy Birthday" song to us. You knew if you answered that phone call on that day, you couldn't get a word in until she was done singing. Conversely, when we called her on her birthday, she fully expected us to do the same for her. (I learned not to call her when I was with friends I might not want to sing in front of.) I could tell she always cherished those calls and took a genuine interest in what was going on in my life. In her later years, when she became hard of hearing, I know it pained her to miss out on details of what we were saying, but she was too proud to admit it. So sometimes she would either pretend to have heard what I said, or would just cut me off completely and change the subject. While at first this was frustrating, once I realized where the behavior was coming from, it just made me sad. 

Like that line from the Eagles' song "Desperado": "You're losin' all your highs and lows...". Is that what old age is? A steady, slow descent from possessing a full range of senses to that cone narrowing, giving you tunnel vision, selective hearing, and a fixation on those little things in life, like that one bird living outside your kitchen window? Is that what's happening to me already, at 41? Without my certain little rituals and routines, I feel "off"? And in a few years, maybe it will make me straight up cantankerous, and I'll start doing everything I can to avoid a disruption in my now-rigid routines?  Am I starting to lose my highs and lows from too-loud house music, or am I still hearing the full range of sound?  That stuff scares the hell out of me. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be what others (including myself) think of as "old". But here I am, accepting the death of a grandparent, a major life event, without much of a ripple in my calm (sadness aside, of course). But I'm sure I'll manage to get bent out of shape over minor travel inconveniences on my way home for the funeral, like not being able to fly on my favorite carrier or not getting an aisle seat. Apparently that's just where I am in life now.

What many people don't know about my grandmother (because it really never gets mentioned, as if it's not a factor) is that she was born with a hip problem and one leg significantly shorter than the other. Her sisters told us tales of pulling her in a wagon to school because she couldn't keep up. She wore a shoe with a 'lift' - a huge platform heel - almost all of her life. She had multiple hip replacements. She walked with a very pronounced limp and frequently, a cane. And she NEVER complained. Not once. Not about the pain, not about the inconvenience, not about how 'unfair' it is to be born crippled, not about the probable ridicule she suffered at the hands of the other children, not about having to use orthopedic shoes, not about the surgeries. She complained about NOTHING. And she had far more to complain about than most, had she felt the need to indulge herself. But she never did. She was downright stoic when it came to bearing the load she'd been given in this life. She had a family who loved her, a husband who cherished her, children and grandchildren who needed her. So she was always there to hear our little whines and gripes, but never unburdened herself to anyone that I knew of. Maybe in her prayers, but I have a feeling she wouldn't even complain in private. She lived through the Great Depression, she saw her parents work hard to provide, and she was grateful for what she had. When I start feeling sorry for myself or want to complain about the banalities of life. I need to remind myself of the role model I had in her and maybe suck it up just a little bit since clearly she was way tougher than this army chick right here.

She may not have been a perfect human being, but none of us are. She was a very good grandmother, archetypal even, and we are so fortunate to have had her in our lives. She made the best after-school peanut butter, banana and honey sandwiches ever, and sometimes those little creature comfort routines really are the important things in life.

Rest in peace, Nana. I will see you in every bird that sings and flower that blooms.