Granny

So many people play important roles in our lives. Whether they stay for a little while or they’re around forever, all of them make an impact.  I don’t ever talk about my childhood or a lot of what made me the woman that I am today, but people who read my books get a glimpse of what’s important to me and some of the people who’ve shaped my life.  

When it came to moms, I was not a very lucky kid.  I don’t have a relationship with my birth mother or the stepmother that’s been in my life since I was a toddler.  Neither relationship was ever very healthy or fulfilling, and I’m the mom, friend, wife, and woman I am today partly because of that.  

Most importantly, I’m who I am today because of my granny.  She was the woman in my life who was constant.  Her love for me never wavered or faded, and it propped me up when I needed strength.  She married young and had four sons by the time she was 22. They lived right on the edge of poverty for a long time.  She worked her ass off to raise her family while she managed to hold on to her faith, even with all the obstacles life threw into her path.  She was, by far, the strongest woman I’ve ever known.

Granny was the sweetest person, and it showed in every interaction she had with the people who were lucky enough to come into her orbit.  She never met someone who wasn’t a potential friend, whether it was the kid carrying her groceries out to her car or the stranger sitting one table over in a restaurant.  I never once heard her say an ugly word about anyone, and she wouldn’t let any of us either, reminding us, “You don’t walk in their shoes or know how their blisters feel.”  Her house was home base to so many people, both blood family and chosen family. Everyone was welcome at any time.  Her kitchen table saw more happiness and sorrow than most people can imagine - she was right there with a glass of tea or a cup of coffee, ready for you to pour your heart out or share your smile.  

A week after school let out for the summer when I was 15, I had surgery to correct a birth defect.   I was stuck in a cast while my friends were doing all the things that teenagers do during the long summer days.  I couldn’t get in the water, so the lake and pool were out.  I was on crutches, so I couldn’t go too far. That meant no trips to the mall to hang out with my friends and look at boys.  I was doomed to spend my break stuck inside on the couch with my casted foot propped up while everyone else had a blast out in the world.  

Granny had just the remedy for that.  She brought me a brown paper sack full of books - new worlds I could explore without ever leaving my house.  Every book was somewhere I could escape to for hours at a time.  There were people in love, in danger, on the run, couples discovering each other, monsters who lived right next door and terrorized entire towns, and fearless vigilantes saving the world from the bad guys one harrowing experience at a time.  

I devoured the books like a starving person who was offered a buffet of their favorite foods.  I read until my eyes crossed and fell asleep with a book in my hand.  I realized I might never want to visit Maine because Stephen King had to get his inspiration from the world around him, and that was terrifying!  I wondered how I could become a badass like Jack Ryan and go out and save the world one catastrophe at a time.  I lost myself in Johanna Lindsey’s Love Only Once and then devoured Tender Rebel and Gentle Rogue before I called Granny and begged her to bring me more!  

She cleared out one of her bookshelves and then went to her sister-in-law’s house, my Great-Aunt Valerie’s.  Granny and Aunt Valerie showed up at my house and brought me two bags of books this time. They sat and talked with me for hours about the books I’d already read that had also come out of their libraries.  

It was my first book club, so to speak, and I was lucky enough to have it with two women who loved those stories just as much as I had.  

I don’t go a single day without thinking of Granny somehow.  Sometimes, it’s a smell that reminds me of her, or I’ll pass her picture that hangs in my living room and see her sweet smile.  In November of this year, she’ll have been gone 10 years. It’s crazy to me that I’ve been without her this long.  I can still hear her voice and feel those good hugs she gave. I still miss her so much that just talking about her brings tears to my eyes - just like I'm crying right now.

Last week, I received a box from Amazon that held paperback copies of the first book I ever published.  My first book, and it was in print!  I carried the box into the house, dropped it onto the chair, and scrambled to find something I could cut the tape with so I could finally hold my dream in my hands.  I recorded that moment so I could share it with my husband, but I didn’t record what happened after I got the box open.  

I held that book to my chest and sat down on the floor and cried.  With tears streaming down my cheeks, I thumbed through the pages, amazed that those words all came from me.  I thought about how proud Granny would be and wondered if she was crying right along with me as she watched me look at my work.  That copy of my book is now ruined from my tears - some of the pages are bent and smudged from where I held it too close to me, and they got wet from my tears.  I can’t send it on to a reader that way.  

And I won’t.  

I put that book on the shelf under the picture of Granny, and every time I look in that direction I’ll see her sitting there on top of one of my proudest achievements. I wouldn’t be a woman who had been able to accomplish that if it hadn’t been for her.  

Mother’s Day is tomorrow, and Granny’s birthday is coming up on May 18th.   Every year around this time, I take a colorful bouquet of Granny’s favorite flowers to her grave.  It’s sort of how I celebrate the change from spring to summer now.  In November, I celebrate the change from fall to winter when I take a different bouquet, and I remember the day she died.  

But this month, instead of sitting there and telling her what’s new in life and wishing she was with me, I’ll pretend she’s there beside me while I read her part of my book.  I might just sit there until I read it all the way through.  I know I’ll cry some more, so I’ll take that book I’ve already ruined with me, and when I come home, I’ll put it right back on the shelf where it belongs - with the woman who started it all.