For Big Nana
Today… in 2014, Big Nana passed gently into that good night. Before any of us knew what was coming, the plan had been for me to leave the kids with the family and return to DC just after Christmas to celebrate my 40th birthday with friends. I was only back for a day or two when Nana took a turn, and all of a sudden, her time was nigh. Could go at any moment. My first thought was, OMG, cancel everything, I have to get back there, how’m I having a birthday with Big Nana dying in Ohio, can’t.
I was practically keys in hand when my mother put a hard stop to my nonsense. Be real. What would Nana want you to do, sit here and cry and watch her? You know what she’d say: “For what?” She was right, of course. Nana loved us somethin’ awful, but she was a fiercely practical woman and not especially sentimental. She’d have been annoyed as hell if I canceled this party – a rare event for a single mother of preschool-age children – to sit there and cry and watch her. Tsk. For what?
So I stayed. It was a good party, too. And even better, Big Nana was good enough to wait for me to get back to Ohio and say a proper goodbye before calling it a day.
Also? Big Nana’s birthday was just one day before Betty White, she’d have turned 100 this year too.
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