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Diaryland
Mom's mother 2003-11-07 @ 6:49 p.m.
My mom's mother's name is Shirley and her ethnic background is Western European Protestant, although she does have a Chilean ancestor in her family tree somewhere. My brother and my cousins call her nana. She and papa, my other grandfather and her husband, elected to go with these Italian names because they didn't care for the sound of Grandma Shirley or Grandpa Ken, and I guess because they wanted something distinct from my other grandparents. Funny, because I don't think they have any Italian ancestry, unless its ancient. Oh well, whatever makes them happy. So nana she is.
My nana grew up in a ranching family and worked hard helping out her parents. She lived and worked on ranches in both California's Central Valley and up in British Columbia, where her parents moved to eventually. Hmm, come to think of it I never found out why they moved up there or why Nana came back to California. I should ask her - I would guess that ranching up there became more profitable for some reason. She met my grandfather on a bus if I remember correctly, although the details don't come to mind.
My Nana is a very pretty lady for her age, although she complains about her hips being too fat from time to time. She has bright eyes and a big smile, and she has this social kind of chuckle she does when you're talking to her. I've never really understood it, but she just kind of says "hehehe" to everything. I doubt she finds all the stuff she hears funny, so maybe its just a way of appearing like she always enjoys what you're saying. It is not the kind of topic I want to ask her about. She's quite sensitive by the way, and she takes socializing a little too serious for my liking. She's the kind of lady who will sit through a miserable 2 hours with some couple nobody likes just because she doesn't want to hurt their feelings. The converse is true in that she gets very hurt if you don't want to spend time with her. Part of this is just between us because from what I understand, she and her grandma were like best friends and she wants to have the same relationship with me. Its very hard though because there's such a huge generation gap, which I don't think would have been as pronounced between her and her grandmother. So there were a couple of times not too long ago when my family and I were staying with her, and I'd get bored as kids are prone to do and ask if I could drive off and do my own thing. Yeah, that made her cry, and I felt SO bad about it. My papa knows its not reasonable though so he's talked to her about it and its not such a big deal anymore.
Aside from doing ranch work when she was young, my Nana's main career was as a registered nurse. Her retirement was pretty recent too. When I was younger and I would stay with her and my papa, I used to get real sad because she'd be gone to work a lot of the time I was there. I don't know why I made a big deal out of it - I mean, if you gotta work, you gotta work. When she was around we usually had a good old time. My grandma used to grow fruits and veggies in her backyard and I got a real kick out of gardening with her. Strawberries were her specialty and they were really fun to go pick. My Nana also makes great fruit jams, and she is an expert at crocheting in my opinion. She's always making something for her grandchildren out of yarn, and its really special. I hope my cousins and my bro can appreciate how much work she does on the crochet. She makes really comfy slippers and gorgeous afghans. If I ever have kids, than the beautiful green afghan she made me is going to be a family heirloom to pass along.
Sadly, as I've gotten older, its been harder to have a good relationship with her. I love her dearly, but unfortunately we're both opinionated and have polar opposite political views. It seems like she's gotten more and more conservative in the last few years, but maybe she was always this way and I never noticed as a kid. Anyway, its made for some very uncomfortable moments. I never told her upfront that I was gay because I knew she would have a big problem it. Little did I know that when I told my mom, who I specifically instructed not to tell anyone else (grrr), she went and told her parents. For a couple of years, I went on pretending to be straight around them because I was scared to death how they'd react, when the whole time they knew! I was right though in that they did have a problem with it, but by the time I found out they knew, they had worked through a lot of it, partly thanks to my mom. I still prefer not to bring it up around them - I think its still something they tolerate rather than accept. Oh well, I guess I feel the same way about them being Republicans, so here we are.
"Details in the Fabric" - May 31, 2009
Not So Quick Questions - April 6, 2009
The Morning Stars - Lords of the 15 - April 9, 2009
Sincerity and Faith in Magic - April 10, 2009
Not So Quick Questions (2) - April 14, 2009
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