Nana, Grandma, Granny, GRA

The woman, the legend, GRA GRA!

My mother came to live with us while Todd served overseas in Desert Storm and then Provide Comfort following the official end of the war effort. What a joy to have her there helping me through some very difficult days when I delivered our first knowing Todd would not be home for several months after her birth.

In the years that followed, Mom changed diapers, meal planned, made grocery lists, became my shopping buddy, and most of all, loved on my babies. Little Cassie could not quite manage the name Grandma as the other grandchildren had. She coaxed Gra Gra from her little vocal chords and forever replaced Grandma. For whatever reason, Gra Gra fell in love with the new name and became the legend.

She sat patiently working with a grandson who struggled with speech issues, picked children up from school, and met moms at doctor’s offices. She didn’t make a huge show of time with her grandchildren, but she was there, enjoying their personalities as they developed and doting on them in her own way, usually to someone else out of earshot, but rarely to their faces, similar to the way she had doted on her own children.

In later years she became the pit stop for one granddaughter on her way home from college and would make her signature sloppy Joe for them to enjoy together. The older she grew, the sweeter she became, and the granddaughter who saw her most near the end dubbed her the “cute little old lady.”

The description probably sounds like everyone’s grandma, but she was ours.

A few weeks ago, Cassie’s little girl, an active little “mini me” to her mother, bounced on my lap, and out of her mouth escaped a clear and confident Gra Gra, right to my face.

I’m growing my own little herd of grandchildren with three of them already three and under and a fourth one on the way. I just hope I can live up to my title.

…and that’s the view from My Front Porch.