I Can Still Hear the Way She Laughed or the Way that Sweet Tea Tasted

Today would have been her 98th birthday. As it stands, this one is the first one we have to do without her. It's surreal to have these experiences without her. She always made a big deal about birthdays. She'd call every year and sing Happy Birthday to you. She couldn't sing a note. No matter where you were, she always sent a card.

The last birthday I had was the one where instead of Nanny's off-key singing, I got a call from my mother to tell me that Nanny was in bad shape and that the end was near. She hung on for four more months, but she was rarely herself in that time. The weekend of Mother's Day, just a week or two before, she insisted that she get out of her chair and hug me hello. I took some videos of her telling stories from seventy years before. And she always told them like they were yesterday. Here's one that I took last year. I sure do love hearing her voice now.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/znv1DTdH5cQBUPXm7

For her 90th birthday, we all got together and had a party for her. Honeymoon Bakery in Rome makes this sour cream fudge cake that will melt your face off. That was before I decided to make my own during the pandemic under necessity. Funny how some of my most successful bouts of creativity come from something I needed. They decorated it with pansies. She loved pansies. She truly loved all flowers and trees. She could tell you about each one she saw. She could identify birds by their calls and taught me to do most of that too. She truly was remarkable. 

As I sit and type this in good company, I heard a cardinal outside. Her favorite bird. His call "pretty, pretty" and they say that visits from cardinals are your departed loved ones. I believe that. I sure do miss her.


I don't really know what to say about her on her birthday. She was the kind of person who always made a big deal about everyone else. She took care of everyone and everything and still managed not to let the stress kill her. 97 and one half years old with all of her own teeth and up to the end, a mind like a steel trap. And she did it with such poise. She made it look so easy about 98% of the time. 

These days I'm finding her in myself. I see her in my sister. I'll never be a tiny, graceful thing, but I will always have her busy hands and her spirit for helping. So much of my little goodness is her. And I'm grateful that I was lucky enough to have her. I learned from her just how to work hard for what you want. She taught me all the meager patience I have. Not just patience for events and people, but patience for feelings and thoughts. The patience to know that everything will pass in a blink. She'd tell me when Gabe was tearing through life like a hurricane to love him extra because "they're only little for a little while, but they're old for a long time." Missing her makes me miss that little boy. They just loved each other so much. The way she looked at him and the way he hovered over her was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

So on her birthday, do something kind. Even if it's just hug someone extra-hard. She would love that in her memory. I didn't mean to cry writing this, but here we are. I keep hoping that one day the grief will be less than the love and trying to convince myself that they aren't tow halves of the same thing.

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