On my first day at the News Journal, my Nana, for reasons I truly cannot imagine, thought I worked at Waffle House. She told a few of our relatives as much, which prompted my brother to send a me a confused text. When I got back to the house that evening, she opened the door smiling and asked if I was making people breakfast. I do not remember exactly what she said when I told her, “No, Nana, I’m working at the newspaper,” but knowing her, she probably laughed at herself and said something like, “Oh, flitter.”
I am glad she could still laugh in moments like that. She was diagnosed with dementia not long after I started my first year of college, and although she had plenty of sad and frustrated moments, she was still the funny and sweet Nana.
I am trying to think of funny things she said that are not too morbid to share, but I guess those out-of-pocket things, the ones that make you laugh with the intensity of a yelp, are the easiest to remember.
We sat around the dining table working on a puzzle once. My brother teased her because, in her mission to find a piece’s correct spot, it sounded like she had growled at the board. As if that had not been funny enough to me and my siblings, she looked at him and said, “May an elephant caress you with his toes.”
Only after several minutes of hysterical laughing were we able to find the song she had quoted, “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up your Nose” by Little Jimmy Dickens. The hilarity of it might not translate well typed out, but the genuine conviction in her voice and the way my brother looked equally amused and scared of the elephant-based harassment she invoked in him still makes me laugh.
The house has been far too quiet since she died on July 8. I don’t hear the wheels of her walker roll along the floorboards and think about how she kept trying to pick up her old walker and carry it until one of us reminded her to actually use the thing. I feel like the stages of grief are missing a step labeled “confusion.” It is not quite denial; it just does not make sense that she is not here. I know the feeling will linger for a long time because it will be six years since my mom died come December, and that does not make sense to me most days.
My Nana (pronounced “neigh-neigh” because her third grandchild, my cousin, decided so when she was little, and it has stuck ever since) lived to 84 years old. I know she lived a long and full life, even when I find myself wishing it lasted just a little while longer. I lived half my life so far in her house, and I am grateful for the time I had with her. I hope when I am older, when 11 years does not feel as long as it does now, I can still remember the silly things she said and all the times she made me laugh.
