My mother in law/the amazing Nanya
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May 4th would be my mother in law's 92nd birthday. In honor of that, and with Mother’s Day right around the corner, I decided to take a break from topics like yucky viral syndromes or tick bites, and share some more personal stories about my children’s paternal grandmother.
In Law.
Just the word might make some people shudder and prefer reading about insects. It can make others feel warm and fuzzy. Regardless of who you get dealt in the in-law department, you have choices as to what type of relationship you establish with your partners parents. Some relationships are more challenging than others. Others are easy from the start. My married daughter Lauren couldn’t be luckier with hers.
Even if you are not close at first, bringing a baby into the equation is often an opportunity to deepen the relationship in a meaningful way. Some folks have turbulent relationships with their own parents, so making the assumption that it is only an in-law that presents challenges is flawed. Take a breath and if it is all possible hit the reset button. Having a child in the mix changes everything.
Before the kids came along, my dealings with Sandy’s mom were clearly going to be a bit interesting to say the least. When I met her for the first time, I was only 17 and I was outmatched from the start.
Elaine was the proverbial Jewish mother who was pretty certain that both of her children were perfect. Sandy was her only son. Being the woman worthy of him was something I was clearly going to have to work towards. One of the first battles of the ‘girlfriend versus the mother’ came when Sandy had to have his wisdom teeth out and asked me to come to NY to be with him. Elaine had already made vats of soup, and had purchased a new blender to make soft foods. “I am his mother and I will take care of him.” I did a wise, quick retreat; Mom was going to win this round.
After several years when it became apparent that this relationship wasn’t going away, we got to be more and more comfortable with each other, but it wasn’t until I had my first child (and the first grandchild for my in-laws) that our relationship became set. We united in the mutual love of the kids and ultimately had a close, enduring loving relationship until the end of her life in 2012. She was another mom to me, but without the same baggage that she had with her biological children.
Elaine may have had some challenging traits as a mother, but as a grandmother she was superb. She threw herself into the role with every ounce of her being. As soon as I became pregnant, Elaine started to mull over what she wanted to be called as a new grandparent. She didn’t want to be called something as common as grandma; even the mention of Bubby horrified her. She decided she would be Nanny. Lauren had other ideas and called her Nanya. It stuck and was perfect. Nanya she was.
Nanya belonged to Lauren. These two were soul mates, if you believe in that kind of thing. (Spoiler alert, I do.) When baby sister Alana came along, Lauren had to learn how to share. The first time Elaine held Alana, Lauren took one look and said, “Nanya, you need to put that baby down. Give her to someone else.”
Although Sandy’s parents had moved from NY to south Florida, they made a point of staying connected with visits to San Francisco every several months. It wasn’t always easy to have relatives come often and stay for several weeks, but having the open door policy is a choice I will never regret. My own mom instilled that value in me. When I was growing up, our vacations were based on grandparent visits rather than trips to more exotic locations.
If you are fortunate enough to have grandparents in the mix, make the effort to help foster the relationship that they have with your children. There are so many people out there who would give anything to have their parents alive to share the joy of watching the grandchildren grow up. Don’t waste this. (apologies to any of my readers for whom this might be a trigger.)
There was never a grandparent day at school that Elaine missed. She had a way about her and attracted all of the kids to her orbit. Everyone knew Lauren and Alana’s grandma.
Nanya was a brilliant and fiercely independent woman. When she was in town, she took the car keys, figured out the car seats and took the kids to movies, parks and museums. It was always an adventure. One story that is hard to forget is the time she spent several minutes playing catch with a gorilla at the zoo, until someone pointed out that she didn’t want to be handling the substance that the gorilla was tossing to her!
She gave money to people on the streets. She was quite clear that she didn’t care what folks did with cash. It was her choice to give. It was theirs what they ended up doing with it.
One of the lessons that Lauren cherished the most from her grandmother was that it is okay to crave and insist on some alone time. Lauren also inherited the travel bug. Elaine loved to visit far off countries, often by herself. She would pick a place and spend a couple of years researching and planning what she would see. She loved art and would have a list of museum exhibits to visit. She would also learn some important phrases in the new language. When we were clearing through her apartment after she died, We found a list of some quick translations in Turkish from a trip to Istanbul:
I admire her priorities!
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She never took photos. She said that’s what postcards are for. She wanted to see things from her eyes and not behind the lens of a camera.
In 2014, Lauren packed up her sturdy backpack which she still has, and is called “ chocolate Ice cream”, and went to spend a year teaching English in Israel. She took advantage of being in that part of the world to take short trips during her breaks. The first trip she rather randomly planned was to Budapest and Prague.
When we told Uncle Bert, Elaine’s brother, that Lauren was going to those two cities, he paused for a moment and told us that those two places were the next ones on Elaine’s bucket list. We had no idea. She had started doing her research but age got in the way and she wasn’t able to go. We got the chills. Maybe not so random after all.
One of the last but important lessons she left us with was that everyone grieves differently. There is no such thing as a correct way to deal with loss.
Elaine had a framed poem that she treasured:
I’m not Here
Don’t stand by my grave and weep
For I’m not there, I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamonds glint on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain
When you awaken in morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circle flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there, I did not die
Indeed, her lessons and her love live on.
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