When is Nana Coming Home? The eulogy.

I haven't been here much this week because, if you didn't know, my grandmother died on December 23. She was 87 and had Altzheimer's, so it was a blessing that she is no longer trapped here on earth. It was still sad, but more a time of celebration and remembrance for us all. I had thought about posting this earlier, then Scott suggested that I do it. This is the eulogy that my brother and I gave at my grandmother's funeral on Sunday, December 27, 2009. (My brother's parts show up in red type- we handed this back and forth.)

When is Nana coming home?

When I think back over a lifetime of knowing this wonderful woman, one phrase sticks out in my mind- When is Nana coming home? You see, she lived with us- kinda. She really lived with whoever she thought needed her the most but our house was her home base. She lived in Charlotte during the week, with Uncle Elmer, or Wanda, but she would usually come home, to my house in Denver, on the weekends. Usually. Some weekends, I would spend all weekend asking “when is Nana coming home?” because she would never show up. She was really bad at calling, and several times I remember my mother saying that something was going to happen, she was going to be lying in a ditch somewhere and we wouldn’t know it until she didn’t show up for work on Monday morning.

You see, I looked for Nana because, I have to tell you, she was FUN! She took my brother and I lots of places, out to eat, to the Ice Capades, to the Circus, to Mr. Zollycopher’s store for gum, oh and don’t forget that time we went to Carowinds. Mom and Dad would take us to Carowinds and put us on rides and meet us at the end.. Mom never rode anything faster than the carousel. But not Nana! She would get off one ride and head for the next almost faster than I could keep up. She was having just as much fun as we were.

That is true- she was tireless. She built homemade see-saws out of logs and boards. She made fishing poles from bamboo and taught us to catch fish with bread and worms, we built tinker toy towers, and she taught to appreciate playing with our cousins. Because often, she would include our cousins in these adventures. Whether we went over to Wanda’s to play with Lara and Scott and Heather, or we took Ken and Greg with us to the lake, or took Ginny’s grandson Tommy with us on an adventure, or went to Aunt Louise and Uncle Pink’s to learn how to play Rook the “Sifford way” Nana was the catalyst. I suppose we were lucky in a way that there were only two of us, but she had enough energy for more and she managed to include our cousins and friends on a pretty regular basis. So “when is Nana coming home” was something you heard around our house a lot.

But it didn’t start out that way. You see, I had an “older sister.” She took you places but forgot that, although I was the baby, that I was getting older and might want in on the fun. So one day, I was maybe 3 years old at the time, when she was bundling you off to the lake once again, I stood up and emphatically stated “I GO TO LAKE, TOO!” but from then on, she had two children or more in tow wherever she went.

She was a strong and independent lady. It wasn’t too common to see divorced women in the 1940’s and at the time it carried a real social stigma. You see, she had my mom 10 days after she turned 16 and was quietly divorced soon after. But she had the strength to raise my mother as a single parent.

When Mom was about 6 months old, Nana had to have her appendix taken out. The doctor who did the surgery asked if he could adopt Nana’s baby girl. She emphatically told him “no.” When he remarked that a 16 year old girl couldn’t raise a baby on her own, she told him “well just watch me!” And she did an incredible job!

Nana was strong, determined, independent, and, to tell the truth, just a wee bit bossy sometimes. The only time we didn’t ask “When is Nana coming home?” was when we were sick. She was the true Florence Nightingale of the family, taking care of whoever needed her most at the time. I always said she should have had a degree in nursing. When Aunt Bessie had her first stroke, she decided Uncle Elmer needed her- so in she went (whether he wanted her to or not!) Then Uncle James got Altzheimers, so it was off to Aunt Cille’s to help her with his care. And Aunt Louise- you guessed it, she was right there. And Uncle Albert Franklin- yes, she cared for him too. But there was a catch- you see, for as wonderful a nurse, and as helpful and generous a person as she was, we hated to have her around if we were sick. Why? Because she had some of the smelliest cures known to man for whatever ailed you. Cold? Well Vicks Vaporrub was the best cure. Sore throat? Chloroseptic was the answer!. A cut must have mecurichrome. Sore muscles or a bad bruise? Have you ever smelled Absorbine Jr? Ick! They may have worked, but when you’re a kid and you don’t feel good, you don’t want someone rubbing smelly stuff all over you. That’s the only time I remember saying “Nana’s not coming home, is she?”

There was that one time though that I was glad to have her around. Right after college, I got mono. It was right before Christmas, and I had had it for about a week. I’d spent the first half of the week afraid I was going to die, and the second half of the week afraid that I wasn’t going to die, when Nana came to the rescue. She came to my little duplex apartment in Greensboro and bundled me up and took me home. She spent probably the next week putting cold washcloths on my head, feeding me what little I felt like eating, and trying to get my fever to stay down. I would have welcomed any smelly thing she had if it would have made me feel better!

As good of a caregiver as she was, she was a horrible patient! I think she took it as a personal insult that a germ dared to enter her body. Like many who get the disease, when Nana got Altzheimer’s we didn’t know what was going on at first. This capable, independent woman was all of a sudden ordering the same thing three times. I think everyone we know got a copy of the Southern Living Cookbook for Christmas one year. And she became paranoid that people were stealing her things. And then one day she went on her quest to rid Hwy 16 of garbage, which was typical of her, but she got lost as she lost sight of the house. As we began to see what affect this disease was having on her, to the point that she didn’t know us, had to live in a nursing home, was back to “Baking Biscuits” with her mother, and especially after she broke her hip three years ago and could no longer walk, I began to ask “When is Nana going home?” There is a time that you know life is better in the arms of the Creator than it is here on earth. And I began to look forward to the day that she would be free of this disease, probably pestering Jesus to go heal someone, and would once again be that carefree, strong, independent and fun woman that she used to be. That day has come. I’ll never ask “When is Nana coming home” again, for now, today, she IS home.