Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Thank you, Nana

I was in Santa Ana the other night and, as usual when I’m in the area, I drive down Poinsettia Street…the street where my grandparent’s lived when I was a little girl.
The house still captivates me--I know they paid something like $8,000 for it in 1957--and the memories FLOOD my mind when I drive by. Roller skating in the back yard (this is where Gina broke her teeth out while we played Wonderama), eating frosted (and always slightly burned) Pop tarts on blue (gas station) paper towels, and drinking (ice-cold) milk out of glass bottles (my Grandpa was a milkman for Adohr Farms.) The best memories of all are the long baths with (lots of) Mr. Bubble in my Grandparents' GIANT bathtub!
(I often wonder how big it really was…it was massive to me when I was little.)
One thing I truly remember is that my Nana never stopped cooking and cleaning. (I am sure that's where I got it.) I recall watching her clean out cabinets, wash walls, darn socks, make pasta from scratch, roll meatballs, cook up delicious peppers and make great big salads in that GIANT wooden bowl! And no one did a better job washing my hair, cleaning out my ears, trimming my fingernails and covering me with Johnson’s Baby Powder after a bubble bath!
I always LOVED being at my Nana’s house…I felt so well taken care of and OH so loved.
As I got older, my grandparents moved from the little house in Santa Ana to a mobile home, first in Orange and then in Lake Forest. Once they were within a few miles of me, I tried to stop by once a week or so to say hello. My Nana was always working on something--cutting coupons, cleaning out drawers, but always stopped to make me a capicola sandwich when I came in.
And, she would always ask me what was up. She knew me. She could read me. She asked deep questions and I told her the answers. She encouraged me to stand up for myself…and, ultimately, she thoroughly supported me when I left my marriage. “You’re only 42!” She said over and over and over again! “Your life is just beginning!” She’d go on to say that if she could have left my Grandpa 50 years earlier, she would have. She said it wasn’t done then--she just suffered—in silence—and "offered it up" for 67 years.
At the end, once my Grandfather died, she told me of her lack of love for him. Oh yeah, she took very good care of him, but he was never very loving or kind to her. She spent a lifetime wishing things could be different. (And cooking and cleaning.) She just didn't want the same for me. Also, of course, since I was not married in the Catholic Church, she would tell me that I was never really married anyway. And, when I was able to see the Pope in Rome in 2006, she told me that it was a sign...it was OK for me to be single.
Thank you, Nana.
The key to all of this was her genuine relationship with me over my whole lifetime (I was 45 when she died--she was a week shy of 95) and her amazing honesty with me toward the end of her life. She was proud of me living alone, being independent and she LOVED that I was traveling the world! She knew that I was getting a second chance…a chance that she would never get.
My Nana took good care of me from the time I was born til her last days on earth. And I have to admit, the gift of her transparency and encouragement was almost as good as the bubble baths and Poptarts.
Almost.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful memory you have...and it re-freshened mine too and made me wish I was a kid again...
but mainly for the food.
The food was great...

Zuzana said...

Dear Julie, I am back online again and what a wonderful post to return to.;)
A beuatiful account of your childhood memories and also a the good advice of a strong woman.;) I bet you got that kind of strength from her as well.;))
Hope all is well with you dear fried,
xoox