Some
of you knew her and some of you didn’t, but my Nannie was a wonderful woman,
just as sweet as they come. A reflection of Jesus inside and out and
never once let her disease affect her faith in God.
Here’s the truth though, no one knew our
Nannie like we knew her. Nannie wasn’t your typical quilt making, cookie
baking grandma. She didn’t sit around all day and watch TV when we
visited. No, that wasn’t our Nannie. My grandma was a roller
skating, go kart driving, water sliding, roller coaster riding Nannie.
We were the luckiest grandkids in the
world. She cherished every moment with us when we were little and
cherished as much as she could when we became adults. She took us to the
movies, went to the mall every other weekend, just to look, and if we were
lucky we got two dollars’ worth of candy from the candy store.
But what set my Nannie a part from the
rest, along with my Grandpa, is the part no one knows, the size of their
hearts.
Family was everything to them. And I
mean EVERYTHING. If you have ever stepped one foot in their
house, you would see the walls covered in pictures, floor to ceiling of their
family.
They were our anchors in our family.
They kept us together.
There was a time in our life’s us first
generation grandkids went through when our world got turned inside out.
All five of us dealt with family splitting, moving into different homes and
even other grandparents passing, all in the span of about 6 months.
Our parents didn’t do a bad job, not at all, they just needed some
help. And in stepped Nannie and Grandpa
Our whole life’s where changing, but the
one thing that stayed constant was Grandma and Grandpa’s house and their
everlasting love. Their house was home to us and it will always be.
It was a home that was filled with love, happiness and every memory from our
child hood. I remember throwing a fit with them years ago when they were
thinking about moving. I told them that they couldn’t. Not that my voice
had any weight in the matter, I just didn’t want to lose the house full of all
our memories. My grandpa decided at the last moment not to move, for
whatever reason he and grandma only knew, but I sure was happy.
They took us on vacations when our parents
couldn’t. Made sure our holidays and birthdays were celebrated the way
they should be and it was always mandatory that they see us during our weekends
with our fathers. Their love never ceased.
When my Nannie knew her time was coming,
she asked for her Pastor. And to show you just how selfless she was, when
he asked what she wanted to pray about, she said “my kids and grandkids that
they will be alright.” She didn’t ask for her pain to stop, she didn’t
even ask to go comfortably. She was just worried about us, just as she
always had.
My last time I talked to her, before she
went to sleep, she kept saying “I did good, I did good.” I corrected her and
said “No nannie, you did great. I love you very much and I will miss you
terribly.” I was crying at this point and she told me not to cry and that
she loved me very much too.
So, if maybe you don’t understand why there
have been so many Facebook and twitter post along with the tears we continue to
shed, it’s not because of the loss, It’s because of the giant void that
is now left. It’s because we have lost that one thing that always was and
would be constant in our lives.
A huge part of our life is now gone and
there will never be anything that can fill it.
We were very lucky though. There are
a lot of people who don’t even have grandparents because they already
passed. We not only had grandparents, we had the best.
They may be gone from this world, but they
instilled a part of themselves in us and they will live on through us. We
will miss them every day and cherish every memory. The only joy that we can
take is knowing that Nannie and Grandpa are together again, just as they should
be. And I guarantee you they are preparing, in heaven, a new home for all
of us. A new home to have new memories and share the old ones.
