The Truth About Grandmas

Well…here we go. The last few days have been more than interesting. I am in Wilmington, NC helping my grandparents out for the week. My grandmother (whom I call Nany) had a stroke last year and had gotten so weak recently that she had to go into a nursing home. What they have done with her in regards to rehab has been amazing. She is coming home on Saturday and I am not sure how it is going to work. My grandfather (Pop) wants to do everything for her which is not what she needs. She NEEDS to work on doing these things herself – it is the only thing that will keep her strength up.

Anyhow, being here has made me think about so many things. Nany has always been an incredibly special part of my life. We used to spend hours talking on the phone, which she can’t do so much anymore, but we have been able to do that a lot since I have been here. Last night before I came back to the house, we were looking through pictures on my computer. She always asks about my love life (or lack thereof) and I pointed out to her the man who I consider the love of my life (so far!) whom she had never seen a picture of. At first I thought she would be shocked that the person I considered to be that great love was not my ex husband. But then I remembered who I was talking to. She knows me better than my own skin. She wanted to know what happened and we just left it at the fact that he is now married with 2 kids. Sometimes things don’t work out. About a month ago, I wasn’t dating anyone and she said to me that the real love of my life was going to show up. I asked “You promise?” and as confident and as sure as anyone has ever told me anything, she said “Yes. I promise”. As ridiculous as this may sound to some, it was literally like she honestly knew that. Like God had told her that I was going to end up on top in the f-ed up world of dating. Well, God wouldn’t have used the f-word, but point being…. A couple of weeks ago she was asking about a guy who I had gone on a couple of dates with. She gets so excited anytime I have a good date (maybe more excited than me) and this was no different. When I told her that I just didn’t know anymore what was going on (you really can start to tell when he is “just not that into you”) she looked at me and said “Julie – I don’t understand that. How could anyone meet you and not love every single bit of you? Those people don’t know you.”

I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about all that she has said to me. Literally I had been up since 7am and was wide awake at 3:40am. She introduces me as “the love of my life”. She makes me feel like a better person. She makes me a better person. Tonight before I left, she was sitting there reading the paper and I was working on some cards for her friends at the nursing home and I caught her staring at me. I asked what she was thinking and she said “About you”. She said she was so happy that I wanted to be there with her. I told her that I loved her more than she knew and told her that she makes me a better person. She responded, “Julie – you make ME a better person. I love you more than you will ever, ever know” and I said “I know you do”. And honestly, even writing this brings tears to my eyes. No one has EVER said that to me and me know, with no doubt, that it is absolutely true. I don’t ever want to forget the way I felt when she said that. Ever.