Remembering Nana

I can't remember how old I was (maybe six?) but my earliest memory of my grandma goes something like this: She took my brother and me out to the woods that bordered her house and told us there were moose living in there. She demonstrated a "moose" call, and the three of us stood in the yard calling for the moose. Surprisingly, we didn't see any moose. To this day, I'm not sure whether my grandma actually believed there were moose in there or whether she was just being silly. And that's pretty much my Nana for you.

I remember other things too. The way Coke tasted different at my grandma's house. Learning to swim in the pool in my grandparent's backyard. I miss their house on Louise more than I miss the house I grew up in. I remember the holidays we celebrated there, with my cousin and me playing hotel in the upstairs bedrooms. I would swear to you that we saw Santa Claus's boot come through the ceiling on Christmas Eve once.

My grandparents divorced in the '80s after what must have been 30 years of marriage. After the divorce, my grandma went back to work as a bank teller, a job that she genuinely seemed to enjoy. I remember her coming over for lunch all dressed up for work and how she was always in a hurry to get back. I remember that she helped me set up my first savings account at her bank.

When my grandma started dating again, she seemed to have no shortage of suitors. She was lively and vivacious and funny, and it seemed to my ten-year-old self that my grandma was in high demand.

It was the '80s--the decade for the music now referred to as "retro." My grandma mentioned a few songs that she particularly liked, and I made her a mix tape with my dual-cassette recorder, listening to the radio for hours on end to catch the songs I wanted to include.

I remember watching her dance at my wedding in 2001. She seemed to be having almost as much fun as I was. You can see it all over her face in the photos from that night.

In 2003, the year I was pregnant with Ella, my grandma suffered an aortic aneurysm. The doctor said she should have died. He called her recovery a miracle. In the summer of 2007, she broke her hip. The doctors said she'd never walk again. But she did.

My grandma always told us, "I'm a tiger. I'm not afraid of anything." If you ask anyone in my family to tell you one thing about my grandma, it would probably be this. Truth be told, I eventually realized this was not entirely accurate. My grandma was afraid of plenty, and she had this "danger lurking around every corner" mentality that my mom shares and with which she continues to drive me crazy. And yet, I can't think of a time that I ever actually saw my grandma scared. She was definitely tough. She was a fighter, and she had a spunk that my girls would be lucky to inherit--the way they inherited the big, dark eyes that my nana had. The same eyes that nearly all the women in our family (with the sole exception of one of my female cousins) have.

I remember that my grandma almost always called me "Natasha," which I sort of hated when I was younger. When I was pregnant with Ella, she told me that I was having a boy because "girls steal your beauty." When I was pregnant with Sadie, she told me, "This one is the boy." And after I had both of my beautiful girls (whom she adored), she would always say, "The next one is going to be a boy." I can still hear her saying that to me--like she and I had some secret we were sharing.

The day my grandma died, I ran out of gas. This has never happened to me before in my life, and I always wondered exactly how people let it happen. The incident itself is neither here nor there, but it seems to be an apt metaphor for how I feel since my grandmother died--like I've run out of gas. I never expected that it would hit as hard as it has. I knew this was coming. Over the past few years, I've gotten so many calls reporting that my grandma wasn't doing very well and that the doctors didn't think she'd make it. But she always did. She ALWAYS did. So even after her heart stopped on Friday, a part of me was still expecting a miracle.

But maybe she was the miracle.

Another thing I'll probably always remember is telling a four-year-old Ella that her nana had died. And how my little Catholic school girl immediately put nana up in heaven with God and the angels. But what she was really concerned with was whether or not my mom will die. And whether or not my mom was sad. Over these past few days, as I've tried to find a way to grieve while still being a mom and doing everything Ella and Sadie need me to do, I know that I've been more subdued than usual. I explained to Ella that I'm just really sad that my grandma died and that I miss her. This four-year-old child put her hand on my arm and said, "Maybe I will make you a present. Yes. I will make you a very special present." She patted my cheek and walked away.

I put together this slideshow. There are so many sentimental songs that I could have included--songs that might bring a tear to your eye. But we've all done enough crying over the past few days (and I am NOT a crier by nature. Dean might disagree, but then he last cried in 1984). So instead, I chose to include a song from my grandma's '80s mix tape. I love that my grandma loved this particular song. It's just so Rose.

Good-bye Nana. You will be missed but never ever forgotten.

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