When I was a little girl, I spent an inordinate amount of time at my grandmother’s house.  Her mother, my great grandmother, who we called Little Nana, lived in an apartment upstairs that she shared with her husband.  Uncle Lou, who was her second husband and not our great-grandfather so we called him uncle (I have no idea why), died in 1970 or 1971.  I was 5 or 6 and his death is the first one that I  was aware of in my young life. He was the first loss that I was cognizant of and the first that made me cry.  I remember after he died, Nana would sit in her living room with a handkerchief and twist her wedding bands and silently cry.  I never heard her sob, but through the years I saw those quiet tears filling her light blue eyes, many times.

Nana was a strong, stubborn woman who loved fiercely and judged harshly when she thought that someone was hurting someone that she loved, or not taking care of their responsibilities; she didn’t have a lot of patience for women who didn’t take care of their own.  She was a soft place for me to go in a world that had too many sharp corners and rough edges.  She would listen to me and tut and tsk in all the appropriate places and she made me feel loved like no one else in the world.  She taught me to play Gin Rummy and Solitaire and when I was a teenager, she asked me to teach her grammar and spelling and punctuation, so that she could write better letters to Lou’s niece. She had no education, but was sharp and bright and I wish that I had known what to teach her as I’m afraid I didn’t do very well with that at all.  She had a quick temper, and was the first to admit when something  ‘Got Her Irish Up’.  She could also be highly irreverent and a little sarcastic and many times I caught her singing Judy Garland’s “I Don’t Care” and doing a little soft shoe after one of her altercations with my grandfather.

The thing I remember most about Nana, the thing that I come back to over and over again is the way she brushed my hair.   I have this crazy, frizzy, thick, unmanageable hair and no one ever had the patience to brush it except for Nana.  She would take her soft bristled brush and I would sit on the floor in front of her and she would separate my hair into sections and then brush each section, starting at the bottom.  She would get the knots and tangles out of the bottom and then work her way up.  She never got annoyed or bored or frustrated and  I truly wish that I had her patience for my own daughter’s hair that Nana had for mine.  It was the perfect segue to bed time for a little girl who had a lot of trouble sleeping…

Lest you believe that this woman was an angel who never did anything wrong, let me tell you she had some stories to tell.  I was probably too young to hear most of them, but she really had no one else to talk to, so I got them all.  And even though some of them left me a little confused and maybe a little shocked, I’m glad I got them.  I’m glad she told me her stories and that I can pass them on to my children, even though I think I’ll wait till they’re a little more age appropriate.

I moved to Florida towards the end of Nana’s life and there are many times that I feel so sad and more than a little guilty that I wasn’t there to brush her hair, or hold her hand at the end of her life.  She gave so much to me and I hope she knew how much I loved her and what a difference she made in my life.

Today is Nana’s birthday.  She would have been 109.

Happy Birthday Nana

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