Time for the granddaughter perspective. Well, really, most of the time I am her daughter but at least I am family. Nana was the ideal grandmother to have growing up. Every summer we would head down to Keowee Key to visit her and Grandpa and have to be pulled away wanting to stay longer. In the bunch of 19 grandkids I am 3rd and the oldest girl (this makes me the favorite!) Nana would take us hiking, blueberry picking, swimming, shopping, anywhere we asked. Some of my fondest memories are from special trips I got to have for my week with Nana, Grandpa and their dachshund Gabe. Going in to 2nd grade I flew all by myself to go see them for a week before my family came for a week too. Who wants camp when you get to go plan a whole week of whatever you want to do and be doted on by your grandparents? Certainly not me. A few years later I got to spend a week with just my brother in South Carolina. What a nice sister I was, accompanying a younger brother who did not want to fly by himself just to spend a week of being spoiled with two, yes TWO freezers full of cookies.
After Grandpa passed away Nana kept the house for a few years and we still visited every summer. Once she moved to Indianapolis she started visiting us more in Massachusetts and her visits during my yearly musicals was always a highlight of the year even if I had to give up my bedroom for a few days. When I started looking at colleges I knew pharmacy was where I was headed and simply checked off the states I had family in. Butler University came up in my search just a few miles from Nana and I liked it on the website but really loved it when I realized this meant I would have an excuse to visit Nana that summer. Mom and I traveled out that June and I guess the rest is history- I am still here 6 years later even though I had to bring her back to Massachusetts with me last year. I need to thank her more for getting me here even if she thought Dad wasn’t going to let me go so far from home.
Once I moved to Indy Nana was my escape to reality to see faces outside of 18-22 for a few hours and food that didn’t come from trays at a cafeteria. She would pick me up every few weeks to join her for church and dinner or to visit other family members throughout the Midwest. A few years into my stay at Butler she started forgetting where Butler was or called me by other names but it never phased me. She just hasn’t been here in a while, she has a large family of course she doesn’t know my name. Its hard not to blame yourself sometimes- what if I realized sooner and got her help from a doctor? Could we have stopped this before it got so far?
I know why we denied it for so long and didn’t catch on. Nana is a brilliant woman. Nana is a terrific actress. She is just now starting to lose that but she can still fool people. Here is a typical conversation:
Hi Nana!
Hi (no name). How are you?
How are the kids/ how is the family/ how is school?
All generic questions. You give her information and she builds off it. She truly doesn’t know the answers but when you tell her things it leads her to the next part. Tah dah! She caught you! Just ask my best friend that I reintroduced to Nana one night and Nana smiled and said “I remember you!” She fell for it… for 5 minutes until Nana asked who she was.
I have plenty of Nana stories to share over the next I hope years as she makes us laugh and cry. I promise some of my favorites later in the week. No matter what memory she loses she certainly has not lost her sense of humor!
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