I Never Called Her Grandma

My 60-something year old grandma is my life-line.

 I never have called her grandma though. We had a few years stint where she was "Granny" and "Gran" but somehow along the way it morphed into "Nanny" then just Nan. We are so much alike that sometimes our conversations lead to tears of laughter or exasperated eye rolls at how ridiculous we think the other is being. We both know how to laugh when we really just want to cry, we like to discuss in-depth our life philosophy every day (both of us just as passionate as the day before) and we know how to survive with a bag of flour, milk, and an egg (which by the way Nan..this is what is going to save Reed and I through grad school).

It doesn't matter what my ramblings are about, I know that no matter what Nan will listen to whatever end-of-the-world debacle I am ranting about and always have advice that inevitably ends with "now that's the truth".

I spent quite a spell of my childhood living with my Nan and Pawie in little yellow house about the size of the tiny apartment I live in now. That is why I just smile  and pat Reed on the face when he worries about if I am really OK with how little space we have. Less to clean, is what Nan always said. But it was in that little yellow house that I learned about living. Sometimes bills come and money doesn't. Sometimes things break that can't be fixed.Sometimes you have to wear hand-me-down clothes that belonged to your brother. And sometimes, you have to eat potato soup for a week with or without the band-aid that Pawie occasionally had to put on so his fingernail wouldn't fall off.

So maybe we were poor, but I sure did have fun living there.

Nan worked the late shift at a factory in my home-town, so she was pretty delirious by quitting time at midnight so it was always fun to talk her into doing things. So one Friday night I convinced her we needed to make something together. So we went to the store and searched around the craft section until we found a little ceramic house that looked a lot like the house we lived in. Of course, it was important that we painted that little house as soon as we got home.

To describe the end result in one word: Horrendous.

We painted the house yellow with red (yes red) trim. The branches of the trees that clung to the side of the house were green with random splotches of red and yellow due to one little girl putting too much paint on her brush and one old woman fogged by exhaustion. We still like to laugh about that ugly house we painted. We decided unanimously that was not our calling in life.

But, it wasn't always fun and games with Nan. I remember once a friend and I were determined to not go to Sunday school. So, we rolled around in mud and made sure to get it in between our toes and matted on our hair. We walked into Nan's house triumphantly. Surely we were too much of a mess to go to church. Two swats and a bottle of Suave shampoo later, we were sitting in the first pew singing How Great Thou Art.

As I've grown up our relationship has changed.  She stopped taking care of me as much and started providing me with the tools to take care of myself. I know the exact moment my Nan stopped seeing me as a child. It was when I was about 16 and Nan, realizing that at certain points in a girl's life certain things start to happen she said, "Sex and cussing are habits. Once you start it is hard to stop." Ahh Nan. You were right.

I guess the thing I love about my Nan the most is that no matter what outlandish idea of the week I come up with..she believes I can do it. She thinks everything I write is brilliant. She thinks I'm a good mother. She also thinks I am the most hilarious person in the world. But, the truth is, who I am now is due much to her. Because of her I could probably survive a natural disaster and then come up with some witty joke about it.

And, I'm also positive that nobody else on this earth could watch Steel Magnolias with me 3 times in a row and seriously consider a 4th.