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RIP Nana <3
Dec. 31st, 2016 01:05 amIt's been a week since my grandmother passed away, and four days since her funeral. I didn't speak at the service; couldn't speak, really, as I was very ill with a cold. I wanted to speak - because speaking up was something my grandmother valued, and taught to me.
She taught me many lessons.
Nana was a woman of regimented order, who taught me to see the beauty in chaos. Following her lead, my brother and I collected unusual pieces of driftwood, shells, stones from the beach near her house in Opotiki. We sat in a tree eating plums for dinner, and made beds with starched sheets the following morning.
Nana's love of nature was instilled in me from an early age. She taught me to fossick for gems, to fish using a hand line, to grow sunflowers and rosemary and apples. She was an animal lover, who treated pets like family members - even if they were lizards or thrushes.
Reading was a passion for Nana, and she fiercely encouraged others to share it. She gave me my first copy of "The Hobbit". She celebrated achievements ("Congrats on School C!") with gifts of books. And after I left home, my childhood books - Sweet Valley High, the Chalet School, a lot of Enid Blyton, etc - were given to children living in poverty, so they'd have a book of their own.
I learned to swim by floating in a circle of Nana's arms, progressing to kicking, and then freestyle while supported by her. She loved the water and passed that on to me.
My Nana called herself a Christian, and a Methodist at that. But with her love of nature, traditional remedies, superstitions, and ability to know instantly when someone was pregnant, we used to teasingly call her a witch. She liked that, it tickled her funny bone. And the witchiness ran in the family, as her daughter left the Latter Day Saints Church and became a neopagan witch, as well as two of her grand-daughters.
She even had the figure of a grandma witch (see Strega Nona). The big belly and boobs made for awesome cuddles, and her short slim legs could walk for miles without tiring.
As well as strong-bodied, Nana was strong-minded - without being pushy about it. When I left home as a love-struck teenager, she hugged me and said, "You'll be back in six weeks." When I married that boyfriend twelve years later, she hugged me and said, "I'm glad I was wrong."
She had strong morals, and all those morals were grounded in love. She followed her husband all over the country and even to Malaya as an army wife. She raised four children, one of whom came out as gay in the 1980s, to follow their hearts. She became a lighthouse keeper's wife even when it meant she had to learn how to slaughter cows, sheep and pigs as well as growing enough vegetables to feed a ravenous family, most of whom she home-schooled.
At age 83, she was much the same woman she'd been twenty years earlier. Then in early December 2016 she started to nod off more often. She wobbled a bit when she moved around. She spoke slower. Alarmed, my aunt took her to the doctor and pushed for a CT scan. The test showed a couple of shadows on her brain: gliomas, brain tumours. On the 14th of December, the prognosis came through: Nana could count her remaining time in weeks, a couple of months at most.
She was gone eight days later.
I visited a couple of days before she died. The last thing I said to her was "I love you."
She rasped up voice enough to whisper back, "I love you too."
She taught me many lessons.
Nana was a woman of regimented order, who taught me to see the beauty in chaos. Following her lead, my brother and I collected unusual pieces of driftwood, shells, stones from the beach near her house in Opotiki. We sat in a tree eating plums for dinner, and made beds with starched sheets the following morning.
Nana's love of nature was instilled in me from an early age. She taught me to fossick for gems, to fish using a hand line, to grow sunflowers and rosemary and apples. She was an animal lover, who treated pets like family members - even if they were lizards or thrushes.
Reading was a passion for Nana, and she fiercely encouraged others to share it. She gave me my first copy of "The Hobbit". She celebrated achievements ("Congrats on School C!") with gifts of books. And after I left home, my childhood books - Sweet Valley High, the Chalet School, a lot of Enid Blyton, etc - were given to children living in poverty, so they'd have a book of their own.
I learned to swim by floating in a circle of Nana's arms, progressing to kicking, and then freestyle while supported by her. She loved the water and passed that on to me.
My Nana called herself a Christian, and a Methodist at that. But with her love of nature, traditional remedies, superstitions, and ability to know instantly when someone was pregnant, we used to teasingly call her a witch. She liked that, it tickled her funny bone. And the witchiness ran in the family, as her daughter left the Latter Day Saints Church and became a neopagan witch, as well as two of her grand-daughters.
She even had the figure of a grandma witch (see Strega Nona). The big belly and boobs made for awesome cuddles, and her short slim legs could walk for miles without tiring.
As well as strong-bodied, Nana was strong-minded - without being pushy about it. When I left home as a love-struck teenager, she hugged me and said, "You'll be back in six weeks." When I married that boyfriend twelve years later, she hugged me and said, "I'm glad I was wrong."
She had strong morals, and all those morals were grounded in love. She followed her husband all over the country and even to Malaya as an army wife. She raised four children, one of whom came out as gay in the 1980s, to follow their hearts. She became a lighthouse keeper's wife even when it meant she had to learn how to slaughter cows, sheep and pigs as well as growing enough vegetables to feed a ravenous family, most of whom she home-schooled.
At age 83, she was much the same woman she'd been twenty years earlier. Then in early December 2016 she started to nod off more often. She wobbled a bit when she moved around. She spoke slower. Alarmed, my aunt took her to the doctor and pushed for a CT scan. The test showed a couple of shadows on her brain: gliomas, brain tumours. On the 14th of December, the prognosis came through: Nana could count her remaining time in weeks, a couple of months at most.
She was gone eight days later.
I visited a couple of days before she died. The last thing I said to her was "I love you."
She rasped up voice enough to whisper back, "I love you too."
