Friday, December 23, 2005
Tonight we went Christmas caroling with some people from our church. I knew It was going to be hard for me to see the elderly people we would be singing to, but I went anyways. Sure enough the sight of the the first elderly lady who came to the door to listen to us choked me up and brought tears to my eyes. I just wanted to hug her, to go inside with her and to have some tea. Because she made me think of my own grandmother. My Nana.
For as long as I remember Nana had been the patriarch of the family, the one nobody dared to question. Even when she couldn't swim but insisted on going off the diving board in the deep end. We just let her go and my Dad jumped in after her to make sure she got to the top. But we didn't dare remind her that she had the limitation of not knowing how to swim!
She was the hardest worker I have ever known. She'd get up at 5:30am to work as a chef at a local restaurant; she'd go home in the afternoon to nap and watch The Guiding Light (we'd sometimes go to her place after school to watch this too)then she'd head into work again for the dinner crowd, and she'd be there until 11pm, only to start her day again 6 hours later. She made a name for herself, though, as the best cook in town, and she really was, and she knew it: try taking her out to eat someplace else, oh my gosh, noone could even toast bread correctly according to her!
Other memories were Christmas Eve at her house, her chowder, her homemade bread, her smell of a kitchen during the week, and Chanel #5 on the weekends.
She was a perfectionist with anything she did. After "retiring" from cooking she worked as a, um I don't know what to call it, handywoman? She renovated rooms in a hotel then moved onto apartments. She did stuff Pete and I have to hire out! Like laying tile, carpet, laminate, wallpaper. And everyone around her better do as good of a job as she thought they should or they'd be doing it over!
I don't have this spunk. I don't even have the ambition or drive that she had. And the hard work ethic, well, that didn't hit me either.
Oh lets not even forget the 9 lives this woman has. Like being stopped at a red light and having a tractor trailer run over the top of her car because he was going too fast when he turned the corner. She lived. Or when she was the ground between two electrical surges, so if anyone would have touched her they would've died from shock, but she lived.
I am still in awe at how strong she was.
She still is strong, but a couple years ago after a stroke, her mind/memory changed. And although I haven't seen Nana in awhile since so much distance is between us, I think of her often and thank God for her, the wonderful loving grandmother who He let me grow up knowing.
I guess the circle of life didn't hit me until I saw the elderly listening to us on their front porch and I thought "we should be singing to Nana".
For as long as I remember Nana had been the patriarch of the family, the one nobody dared to question. Even when she couldn't swim but insisted on going off the diving board in the deep end. We just let her go and my Dad jumped in after her to make sure she got to the top. But we didn't dare remind her that she had the limitation of not knowing how to swim!
She was the hardest worker I have ever known. She'd get up at 5:30am to work as a chef at a local restaurant; she'd go home in the afternoon to nap and watch The Guiding Light (we'd sometimes go to her place after school to watch this too)then she'd head into work again for the dinner crowd, and she'd be there until 11pm, only to start her day again 6 hours later. She made a name for herself, though, as the best cook in town, and she really was, and she knew it: try taking her out to eat someplace else, oh my gosh, noone could even toast bread correctly according to her!
Other memories were Christmas Eve at her house, her chowder, her homemade bread, her smell of a kitchen during the week, and Chanel #5 on the weekends.
She was a perfectionist with anything she did. After "retiring" from cooking she worked as a, um I don't know what to call it, handywoman? She renovated rooms in a hotel then moved onto apartments. She did stuff Pete and I have to hire out! Like laying tile, carpet, laminate, wallpaper. And everyone around her better do as good of a job as she thought they should or they'd be doing it over!
I don't have this spunk. I don't even have the ambition or drive that she had. And the hard work ethic, well, that didn't hit me either.
Oh lets not even forget the 9 lives this woman has. Like being stopped at a red light and having a tractor trailer run over the top of her car because he was going too fast when he turned the corner. She lived. Or when she was the ground between two electrical surges, so if anyone would have touched her they would've died from shock, but she lived.
I am still in awe at how strong she was.
She still is strong, but a couple years ago after a stroke, her mind/memory changed. And although I haven't seen Nana in awhile since so much distance is between us, I think of her often and thank God for her, the wonderful loving grandmother who He let me grow up knowing.
I guess the circle of life didn't hit me until I saw the elderly listening to us on their front porch and I thought "we should be singing to Nana".
posted by HollieHobbie @ 12/28/2005 04:17:00 AM
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