Oh My Dears.
My beloved Nana died quite suddenly yesterday and I am still reeling - feeling sad and melancholy, but also at peace with how it ended. Death brings out such a vast array of emotions.
My mother and I had a an afternoon with her before she went - we got to tell her how very much we loved her and that it was ok to go. We played old music and talked about memories. How she loved to sew and how, as a teenager, she’d paddle out to the middle of Lake Union to chip bark off the log booms for heating fuel during the Great Depression.
Had we not had yesterday afternoon, her departure would have been much, much harder. And for that I will always be grateful.
I was so lucky to have her and my grandfather. From Grandpa George I inherited, through my mom, a love of hiking, exploring, and adventuring. He had a dry, yet wickedly funny sense of humor and loved to dance. Chocolate ice cream was his very favorite food.
Thanks to my Nana, I have an interest in design, crafts, and homemade apple pie. She’s the one to whose house I went to every Friday during high school when I didn’t have crew practice, who taught me how to make fudge, and who was, until just a few years ago, was my life-long pen pal. She faithfully wrote me thousands of letters in her sprawling, spidery script.
You can’t choose who your family is, but with these two, I was so very lucky. And they are missed.
Nana (1917-2012) Grandpa George (1911-2012)
