"My Nana was the person who taught me my letters, who took care of me after school, who painted my nails and made the best chocolate chip cookies ever. She took me on her Amway runs and made me sit for hours at the hairdresser. Her old house in NH was the place of my childhood. Christmases at Nana’s house will always be my standard of a wonderful holiday with a fire in the stove, large windows for watching the snow fall on a woodsy back yard, music playing softly in the background, and a big, beautiful tree decorated with the family ornaments. And for some reason, cardinals and Nana will always go together in my mind. This is a little of the grandmother I remember from my childhood, the details that have imprinted her on my memory, but it is nothing of the woman who married my grandfather and who raised five children, who taught school, who hoped, dreamed, planned, and lived. This is my only regret. I spent from my birth until eleven years old with her and I love those memories. But they are the memories of a child and I regret that I never got the chance to know her as one woman knows another, as I know my own mother. I wish I knew which movies were her favorite, what she liked to wear, the boys she dated, what made her laugh, what made her cry, the things she always wanted to do, the things that changed her, the advice she would have given me about my own life. I wish I could have asked her what it was like to love one man for fifty years or how she raised a family. I wish I knew what she would have thought of the person I have become. However, she gave me some gifts that are more precious than anything else in the world and which let me see her through the lives of others. She gave me my mother, the most wonderful gift that anyone could have given me. And she gave me my family, full of aunts, uncles, and cousins I never get to see enough. Through them, I catch glimpses of the woman I called my Nana. So now, I am just being patient until the day I get to find out all of the things about her I never got to know here. "
2 comments:
I can tell you what she would think about you. She would be extremely proud and would be telling all of her friends about her wonderful hard working granddaughter.
I can't read it. I break down every time i try.
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