Holding On

I'm pretty far from family right now. My brother lives closest and that's about five hours away. I'm accustomed to being away from family and that's a lot easier than it used to be. As with all of you, people in my family and even friends cross my mind and linger for a while. Others will nag at my brain until I do something about it: a phone call, e-mail, card, something. Such has been the case with my grandmother. She's the only grandparent I have left and the only one with whom I feel like I have had an actual relationship. I ended up talking with her for about an hour yesterday. I'm not a phone person. This means that David rarely gets to hear me talking to friend or family for any extended period of time. He enjoys it when I do. Nanny is one of the few people in my life that an hour doesn't seem like an hour when talking.

The funniest thing to me is that she reports to me that others in the extended family have concern about her showing "favoritism" toward me. Maybe it isn't as laughable to them, but to look at the facts, it is ridiculous to expect her not to. I'm not saying I'm some super special person or better than anyone else, far from it. Nanny raised me for two and a half years. One and a half years it was just the two of us. Of COURSE she's going to have some sort of partiality toward me! To expect her not to is silly.

After I got off the phone with Nanny, David and I had a long conversation about the things that have contributed to our relationship. I can fully recall a time when she was NOT my favorite person. The circumstances surrounding our time together were very, very painful and confusing for me. I often doubted the wisdom and reasoning of those involved. I cannot identify specific things I was exposed to that affected me over the time I was with Nanny. I do attribute a portion of my strength throughout my life to watching her survive after Gramps died. To know that life goes on. Pain happens, loss happens, but giving up isn't something that brings the joy to life. She has been teaching that lesson for twenty years now and she won't quit until her heart stops beating. The world will be a worse place the day that happens.

I cannot say what my life would have been like had I not spent that time with Nanny, but I do know it would have been different and I would not be where I am today without her contributions to my upbringing as well as my mother's decision to allow her to contribute in such a way. I'm sure it was no easy decision, now. It is interesting to me that within that span of time I, seemingly simultaneously at times, experienced emotions on both ends of the spectrum. I cannot say this of any other period of my life except for the past few years.

There is a growing realization that she is getting older and the farther away I become from home, the more I worry about whether I will see her again. I do have a stockade of memories which include her and those aren't going anywhere. I'm working on convincing Henley to be born on her birthday, but I'm not sure she's really listening. Besides, Sundays aren't the most convenient for the doctors. Only time will tell.