Nana's 89

Warning: ahead is a lot of sentimental stuff that has nothing to do with the kind of stuff I usually post. Mostly I will be talking about my grandmother because today is her birthday. It's bringing up a lot of memories and I just wanted to post them. So stop now if you don't care about that. I won't be offended.



So, today is my Nana's 89th birthday. That means she was born on 7-11-21. Not bad for lucky numbers, huh? Nana raised 10 kids, my mother being the oldest, and those kids had 15 kids, me being right in the middle, and those kids so far have had 10 kids. So there are quite a few of us who quite literally owe our lives to her. She is my last remaining grandparent and has been since my father's father died in 1990. Papa, who was Nana's husband, died in 1985 when I was only 6.

Nana is, quite simply, the best. You'd think with all of those kids maybe at least half of them would be scattered throughout the country. But aside from one uncle who lives in Baltimore, and, quite sadly, aunt Rosie who passed away in 1994, everyone else lives within maybe a 15-minute drive. In fact, four of her children, including my mother, live in houses that you can see out of Nana's windows. That's how I got to grow up, living next door to many of my cousins and getting the advantages of having extra brothers and sisters, extra people to play with, without all of the disadvantages, like say fighting over the TV or sharing a bathroom. This set-up was, and still is referred to as "The Compound."

It was a fun way to grow up. Nana's backyard is a huge field, literally with a backstop, home plate and a pitcher's mound, plus a really nice swimming pool, and every morning of summer vacation we'd usually wake up and make our way over there. Nana's house is the center of many of my childhood memories.

I feel very fortunate to still have her around. As far as her health is concerned, she's physically doing fairly well, although she now either usually needs a walker or the arm of someone else to get around. She does, however, have Alzheimers. If you met her and talked to her for a bit, you might not even notice. She is not delusional and she doesn't make things up. It's just that now her short-term memory is about as reliable as that of Dory from Finding Nemo. It's kind of funny, because when you talk to her, she can tell you a story of something that happened when she was 10 years old, but if you ask her at 2:00 in the afternoon what she had for lunch, or even if she had lunch, she would probably have no idea.

Most of the time, for as long as I can remember, Nana can be found sitting at the head of the table in what she calls the breakfast room attached to the kitchen of the house she's lived in for 53 years after moving the family from West Roxbury to New Hampshire, which at the time she thought was the end of the world. When she wakes up in the morning, that's where she goes. Whoever was around will have left her a medium black coffee from Dunkin' Donuts and sometimes a muffin or some other fatty baked good. Nana isn't really that interested in food anymore, and she is the only person on Earth that I would advocate eating a giant coffee cake muffin for breakfast. You see, that's what she loves, and that's what she'll eat. Nana is not going to eat an egg white omelet with vegetables. In fact, take her to a restaurant where they ask her which of several vegetables she wants, she will reply: None. Ask her if she wants baked potato, mashed potatoes or rice, she will ask, "Do you have french fries?" She will often think that Diet Coke counts as a "meal" because it filled her up, another reason why I think she should get to eat the good stuff.

She's 89. I think she should have whatever she wants. So she'll sit there and drink her coffee with one Sweet 'N Low, eat part of a muffin and read the newspaper. Some days she will read something really interesting, like the National Enquirer or Star Weekly. Nana used to read a lot, but the problem is, if she starts a new book, she won't remember what she read about in the last chapter. Heck, in some cases, maybe not the last page. So anything where the information is conveyed in a paragraph or two is really all she can manage at this point.

This has only been going on for a couple of years now, but fortunately, it has not made Nana an unhappy person. Well, unless she is reminded that she is no longer allowed to drive a car. A while back, she went out one afternoon for a doctor's appointment or some such thing and she couldn't figure out how to get home. She was always fine if she went to the grocery store or church, her two standard destinations, but throw a wrench into the system and things got ugly. But, then again, on certain days, if she doesn't look out the window and notice the absence of her old, green Ford Taurus, she sometimes doesn't even realize she hasn't driven in almost two years.

She will still make fun of herself, like when she asks my niece for the 5th time in one visit what grade she is in school, and finally her 7-year old patience can't take it and she gives Nana "the look" and Nana will say, "Did I already ask you that?" Only to be replied with, "Like a million times." But Nana will usually laugh it off. She knows she doesn't remember much. In fact, on one visit a few weeks ago she was telling me this story, only it didn't have a definitive beginning, middle and end. So she just kept on telling me the same things in sort of a 3-minute, continuous loop. Somehow I was finally able to change the subject.

Another favorite story of Nana is when she was watching a football game (she loves to watch football, and sometimes used to call Teddy Bruschi "My Teddy") and they were discussing some guy's last name and what nationality it was. Nana said that it couldn't possibly be Italian, because no Italian name ends in I. Well, her maiden name - her Italian maiden name - is Pucci.

She remembers all of us, though. Or most of us, anyway. I think some of the great grandkids she still has trouble with, but since the rest of us have been around for anywhere between 25 and 41 years, apparently we are entrenched in some deeper memory that Alzheimers has not yet claimed. She knows I race triathlons and always asks me if I have any races coming up. No matter what answer I give, she will ask me again three or four times over the course of one conversation. Inevitably, rather than explaining the race, the distances, and how many people will be in it once again, I will change my answer to a simple "no."

In spite of her memory issues, she still remains incredibly perceptive and an excellent judge of character. Beneath that sweet demeanor lies someone who will not take any of your crap if that is what you are trying to get past her. She can tell when people are trying to pull something over on her. She knows when someone isn't to be trusted or isn't really worth her time. The great thing about this is, at her age, she isn't afraid to say so anymore.

There are a few absolutes when it comes to Nana. First, there will always be treats in the freezer and the pantry. If there are no Oreos at your house, you will definitely find them at Nana's. Same goes for the seemingly self-refilling jar of M&M's kept in the living room. The freezer has evolved over the years. When I was growing up it was always Hoodsie cups. Somewhere along the line it switched briefly to ice cream sandwiches and occasional popsicles. Eventually things settled on Klondike bars (which everyone will start by cutting in half, offering the other half to someone else, putting it back in the freezer when nobody accepts, then going back very quickly for the other half) and Brigham's ice cream. Nana's five sons are all over 50 years old, but one day I witnessed several of them deciding to make Ring Ding ice cream sundaes like 12-year olds. (Ring Dings are not part of the usual rotation, but sometimes make special appearances)

I have spent every Christmas of my life at Nana's house. I'm not sure there has ever been one with less than maybe 30 people. The turkey was always monstrous, and Nana still makes the best mashed potatoes I have ever tasted. Her other specialty, and really the only thing she makes anymore, is potato salad. However, on for one recent family barbecue, she did, in fact, make the potato salad twice.

It's funny though how her memory can be so bad but so many other things are going so well. For example, she has great eyesight. It wasn't so great a few years ago, but she had cataract surgery and suddenly could see everything crystal clear. Apparently things had gotten so bad before that, once she looked in the mirror and saw her face clearly for the first time in years, she immediately went to the store to buy wrinkle cream. I believe she was 83 at the time. Probably too late for that cream to work any miracles, no matter what the commercials say. She does wear hearing aids, which she hates, but we appreciate not having her answer questions we didn't ask. "How was the weather today?" "Oh, yes, they were here last week." Huh?

I don't like to think about it, but it will be strange when she's gone. Most of my run routes go past her house, and depending on the wind direction I can smell her perfume from the street. Her house is the central location for so many family activities. My parents were married in her back yard, as were a few of my aunts and uncles and my sister. There have been many family reunions, dozens of pick-up softball games, volleyball, basketball, kickball, water balloon fights, giant snowmen in the winter, pool baseball, cookouts, and one recent party, the 7-7-07 party to celebrate the 50th anniversary of living in the house, when the police were called about the noise into the night. My uncle brought Nana out to the cops and told them, "Here she is, boys. Arrest her!" Of course, they didn't. By the end of the night the line to say hi to Nana was long enough to require a Disney World-style fast pass. It was like seeking an audience with the Pope.

I don't know what it is about that old house though. The week after September 11th, without any real sort of prompting, people started bringing candles out to place on the rock wall in front of it. By the end of the week there were dozens of them from random strangers all over town coming to reflect at the makeshift vigil. I still can't figure out what started that or why it occurred but I'm sure I'll never forget it.

You don't ever ring the doorbell at Nana's, you just walk in and say hi. My aunt Tricia lives with her, so she doesn't have to be by herself. But considering the amount of relatives living in such close proximity, I'd say that most days while Tricia is at work she probably doesn't go more than a few hours without a visitor of some kind. Just this winter though my mom and her siblings decided it was time to get her one of those visiting nurses who just comes a few days a week just to be in the house in case something happens while nobody is there. Nana thinks she's just the cleaning lady. Nobody lied to her and told her that, she just assumes. She doesn't want to need help and I don't blame her.

Fortunately, Nana doesn't spend all of her time cooped up in the house. For one thing, she does love sitting in the sun in the back yard if the occasion calls for it. I know she's got that pool, but funny thing, Nana never learned how to swim. She often tells me a story of the mean woman who used to throw her in the ocean when she was a kid growing up in Southie and made her terrified of water. So the pool is not her usual destination, although she used to sometimes go and just wade around in the shallow end. She gets to go out to dinner a few times a week, always ordering a vodka and tonic, the only alcohol she consumes. She also goes out to lunch with my mother or anyone else who might be around, although you have to make sure you catch her at the right time. If you call her and tell her you're going to pick her up in 20 minutes, you might just go and find that she forgot you called and decided to take a nap instead.

No matter how frustrating it can be at times now to talk to her, she is usually in good spirits and I don't like to go too long without seeing her, even though she would usually have no idea if it had been two days or two months between visits. She smiles a lot and always seems happy to see anyone.

Yep, her memory may be slipping, but fortunately after a rapid decline early on, the deterioration seems to have slowed or possibly even stopped completely. Looking forward to having a huge party for her 90th next year. It probably won't be as mobile as her 80th, in which we rented a trolly to drive around Southie, handed her a microphone and let her narrate her childhood memories like some guided tour, but I'm sure it will be fun, nonetheless. Actually, that one was a surprise. I don't think it's a good idea to surprise people once they reach a certain age. But dinner for 40 at Pier 4 in Boston was also pretty nice. She still loves those popovers.

So happy birthday, Nana. Thanks for giving me such a great family.