The portrait of my Nana at her high school graduation (in white)
I've written this post hundreds of times in my mind, and probably at least 20 here. It's been saved on my computer for nearly two years. Finally, near the fifth anniversary of her passing, I'm sharing it. The most difficult
thing in blogging is writing about subjects so near and dear to my heart. It
may seem like I am able to share things without hesitation, but I keep a great
deal of myself secret, not just to the internet, but to everyone.
“It sounds like we
would have had a great deal to say to each other
I bet when I leave my body for the sky the wait, will be worth it.” Airplanes by Local Natives
Every time I hear this song I think of the first time I
heard it, over 3 years ago. It was around the anniversary of the passing of my maternal grandmother,
my Nana, after a brief battle with lung cancer. It hit her quickly, and
despite a family full of doctors and nurses, no cent spared in hopes of a cure, nothing could be done. Money can't buy everything.
My Nana was, strange as it sounds, the love of my life. She
was the earliest thing I had to a soul mate. We were alike in a family where we
were different. The artists surrounded by scientists. Dreamers surrounded by
realists. She taught me to create, to express. She loved deeply, listened intently and advised wisely. Her favorite words are inked
forever on my arm, ‘this too shall pass’, in her very handwriting.
The love I have for her cannot be put into words on this
page.
And so I named my firstborn after her. Lola Rose, my
daughter, named for Rose Maureen. This is the story I will tell her.
Rose was born the third of three children in Wichita, Kansas
in the midst of the Great Depression. She was born to a farmer father and an
artist mother. Her father drank heavily. It wasn't an easy or happy childhood from what I gather, but I never heard her complain about it. I do remember her once telling me some nights it was so cold, she cried when she had to get into bed
because her sheets were like ice. When she was five, her mother asked a neighbor to watch Rose while she went to the store. She never came back. Nana told me that she just thought her mom had gotten lost. In reality, she had left her family to go to Hollywood to pursue her dreams of fame as a singer.
Thinking back now, as a mother, these stories break my
heart.
Rose went to live with her father’s parents. They
owned a funeral home, where she would live with them for the next 12 years.
At 17, Rose left Kansas to live with her mother, now
remarried to an artist and living in Los Angeles. She graduated high school and worked for film
studios in Hollywood, as a fit model. She was beautiful, with strawberry blonde
hair and green eyes. And tiny! She told me once that sometimes, she could only
afford to eat cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup, and she was the smallest of all
the fit models due to that.
My mother has a beautiful emerald green velvet skirt suit
that my nana wore in a fashion show. She wore that suit to a Holiday party, one December in 1951, where
she met a very handsome, charismatic man named Gerry, who also worked in Hollywood. A very (VERY) fast courtship
was followed by marriage. My Aunt was
born that October.
Three more children followed. A son, then their second girl,
my mother, and finally a fourth child, years later. They lived near Gerald’s parents
in Los Angeles, eventually moving to the Orange County in the 1970s. They
spent their weekends in the desert riding dirt bikes, boating or fishing and
water skiing. My mom and her siblings
grew up with many friends and tons happy stories. I like to think my Nana gave her
children the childhood she did not have.
The things I remember about my Nana are her smell (Red Door perfume and Dial soap), her nickname for me (babydoll) butter and sugar sandwiches on white bread, her laugh, her
ability to seem innocent and then shark the best card player around.
She taught herself to use DOS in the 1980s. She became a
licensed CPA. She provided for her family when my grandfather could not. She
did it all on her own. And she was the kindest, gentlest person.
So when my daughter is old enough, this is the story of her
name. Of how I became who I am, and the person most important to me… besides
her.
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