for my grandmother

When I think of Nana, I can almost smell shelves of books in the Tomball Public Library mixed with roses and cigarette smoke.  My grandmother recently passed away, fulfilling one of my biggest fears when I left for our Peace Corps service: losing someone I love dearly and being far from my family as we grieve.  My earliest memories of our time together involve trips to the library.  I swam in the glossy children’s books section while she chatted with her librarian friends who always had books on hold for her.  From our first trip, I was sold: as they were for her, books became a friend, a mentor, a gateway to every place I wanted to see. 

I didn’t fall for plants as quickly, though.  It wasn’t until the past few years that I tried digging my hands in the dirt as she did.  And while I wasn’t able to keep our Confederate Jasmine alive, much less grow any roses, I was able to grow green beans and spinach right in our backyard.  I’ve been caring for a sage plant for nearly three years, moving it wherever I moved.  Not normally a patient person, I attribute my willingness to sit around and pick hornworms off tomato plants to her.  Willingness isn’t the right word.  I found joy in it.  Running home to play in my garden during my lunch break was often a highlight of my workday.

My grandmother was a storyteller.  Sitting on the back porch together, mosquitoes circling us in the heat, she told of how she worked at a movie theater when she was a young woman.  The way she described flirting with young soldiers catching a film on their night off made me imagine her as an Ingrid Bergman character right out of an old film.  It sounded so glamorous to me at the time.  It still does.

Nana “got” me when others didn’t.  When I tossed around ideas of studying abroad, she immediately responded with, “Do it.”  It was the same way whenever I brought up spending the summer in New England, moving to California, joining the Peace Corps, anything.  Nana said “GO” when others said, “Why don’t you think about it a little more.”  Her support, her instantaneous support, kept me moving, kept me brave.

So while she isn’t here anymore, in some small way she is.  Her stories have settled in my heart.  They’ve settled into the pages of my books and the soil of my gardens, and they’ve helped shape me into someone brave enough to create my own story.  As I turn pages, I hope to continue to find her.