My Nana

Yesterday there was quite a storm here on the south shore. Snow so deep that tires of the car just spin and slide and you hope to regain control before hitting something.
During this storm I was sitting snoffling across from my Nana who is 92 years old. She likes to tell stories and I am no longer sure which ones are true and neither is she, it seems. So we discussed my life for a bit but since my life is all very unsure and after dealing with te fact that I am not yet getting married - we returned to the stories. My Nana said that i should wait to get married until it was right and then tried to figure out if she was married by my age - which of course she was. I am 29. She was married at 21 (as was my Mom - not her daughter but an interesting fact). She was married to my granfather (Grampy) for 68 years until he died 5 years ago.
She had some resentment through the marriage because she had to take care of the four kids basically alone (of course this is only her side of the story) and she told me of one night that this drove her to drink a whole bottle of wine and pass out wrapped around the toilet. While she was drinking and caring for the kids her brother and sister in law and husband were downstairs playing cards. her brother found her, the kids were already in bed and my Grampy unwedged her from her toilet bowl party. This is surely a rare story for my Nana who wouldn't even take tylenol for years and still won't drink wine to this day after that incident.

But she claims that no one will ever find a husband as good as hers. She said she thinks 'he cherished the ground she walked on.' Being that I saw a good deal of their marriage I can say that is an apt description and it is also likely true that he was not around as much as he 'should ' have been. My grandfather was a soft spoken man that you didn't want to make angry but he was very sensitive and caring and somewhat seperated from the inner workings of his famil until much later in life. But he was always loved and in his later years you could see both the lament for what he had missed and the desire to not miss another moment of his family's life. He would cry - literally - when my cousin would announce a pregnancy, wedding, etc. in these later years. And I do think of what I did not have to offer him in my life thus far - no marriage, no kids - but I did live in sin there for awhile though I am not sure if he knew of either co-habitation.

Anyhow, My Nana also told me about being old...elderly as she said. She is 92. She claims that it can be very lonely and depressing at times but that some of it is good like the grandkids and bingo and senior nights. She told me about the good nursing homes and the bad ones, even though she lives in her home with my Dad. I got the feeling that she wished she could live a slightly different older life perhaps that of a wealthy lady because as she said they always got to go on lots of trips. They have these senior trips - - I am not entirely sure where they go but she wanted to be able to go although in reality it is hard for her to walk because of her hip so she thinks that it might not even be possible. So there is that but she still goes and plays bingo three times a week and she is going to Foxwoods this week so that should be fun. She takes 9 pills a day not including the Tylenol (Advil not allowed) and mainly spends time hanging out , talking or arguing with my dad, watching old movies or tv, playing bingo, or some computer slot game, or with the rest of my family (most of which lives nearby). My nana claims it is not the aches and pains of old age that bother her so much as the fact that she feels that she is going blind. She has lost a lot of sight and had lots of operations which did not entirely work and this is her biggest ailment the loss of her sight.
This led to a mini-lecture on that I have to take some vitamins so that this does not happen to me, I asked her which one and she spelled out L- E- N- T- I- L which I imagine is wrong as last I checked lentil is a bean and not a vitamin but i made a mental note to eat more lenti soup - it can't hurt. Then she explained that you have to be aware of things like ths when you get old because doctors treat you differently. They won't do certain procedures and don't treat you as equals with your younger counterparts, so your medical care declines. So, doctors become a scary thing and she has no faith that they really want to save her life or help her to be better and I can't really balme her. I have seen them explain to her that they won't give her an operation that they would give a 72 or 82 year old woman. I am sure ther are many risks involved and 'good' reasons for this but my Nana sees the differential treatment and views it as the doctor saying that she is less worthy of living because she is so old.
She told me lots of other stories about the kids (my dad and aunts and uncle) being little terrors and getting lost and whatnot and about her mom and dad whse graves she took the kids to visit every memorial day. Her Dad did at 47 I think but her Mom lived on a while - I thought that I remembered her when I was little but maybe that was just from pictures as it would make it impossible to take her little ones to her mom's grave. Who know? Memory is so subjective. For example, until yesterday I thought my Nana came here from Lithuania but that is apparently not true. She told me that her parents came her from Lithuania (her dad) and Poland (her mom) and that her Mom was of noble descent. My Grampy's family came from Russia. Now I am all confused about how all the pieces fit together but I am trying to paint the picture that I have thus far. Since my Nana is 92, she was born in 1913 and so her Mom and Dad came here before then...I am curious to find out how, where, why. Did they go through Ellis Island? Did their parents bring them? These thing I do not find out but i do find out that my great-great grandmother owned horses which I don't find too shocking as this was a long time ago - there were no cars and it was in Poland likely. But that prompts my nana to explain that only the truy elite, the noblest of families at that time owned horses. These historal conversations continue as my dad and two brothers are downstairs watching the DVD of the Patriots winning the superbowl. So, I think of my dad for a second and how he owned a bunch of race horses when i was a little girl and I start to wonder how much of that stuff is in your genetic make-up? Did he own horses becuase his grandmother owned horses and so did her dad etc...
Anyway, I started to fade as I have this damn cold that I caught on the plane and after a few more stories and getting to see these intersting war rations books from World War II with my aunt and grandfather's names on them containg coupons for coffee , fruit, grains, etc....I carefully tiptoed away and checked out the garbage basket as my Nana had revealed to me that she discarded all the love letter from my Gramy just today or yestreday because she didn't want her kids to have to do it after she died. Love letters - how truly romantic right? I was dying to se them and save them but alas no luck, I didn't find a thing but I guess that is ok...that was her great love and it will remain with her. I will find my own. But it does make me happy to see that even with the pain and saddness she has endured she loves life still and she knows that she was and is loved and I think that is something she couldn't see when she was younger but something she views more clearly if also more nostalgically now that she is 92 years young.