Letters from Nana
There is a long running joke in my family that wherever I go I leave something behind. When I was little it was toys, clothes, backpacks and so on, now it is bottles, binkys, and bibs but the fact is I leave mementos of my visit wherever I go. I remember my Nana getting so angry that "I didn't take better care of my things." This was after I left a very expensive doll on the school bus in first grade and it went missing. I never really tried to NOT take care of my things but I guess I was hoping that if I left something behind I might get invited back, even if only to pick up my forgotten item.
Over the years I got better at taking care of my things. I know when something has value whether it is emotional or monetary and THOSE items are treasured.
Yesterday was a rainy, dreary, crappy day. The kind of day that I would call up my Nana and schedule a "little" visit. I would drive down with Noah (pre-Bella) and she would make lunch and we would chat for hours, sometimes about important things and sometimes just about anything. While I was thinking about her yesterday I remembered something else, Nana was the only person that ever mailed me a letter. Not a post card, not a typed family update, not a Hallmark card with a signature, but a real handwritten letter. I would get one or two every couple of months. Most of them written when I was pregnant with my first baby and just like our visits some of the letters were filled with a important message and others just to say hi and let me know she had been thinking of me. I have all of these letters.
Over the years I got better at taking care of my things. I know when something has value whether it is emotional or monetary and THOSE items are treasured.
Yesterday was a rainy, dreary, crappy day. The kind of day that I would call up my Nana and schedule a "little" visit. I would drive down with Noah (pre-Bella) and she would make lunch and we would chat for hours, sometimes about important things and sometimes just about anything. While I was thinking about her yesterday I remembered something else, Nana was the only person that ever mailed me a letter. Not a post card, not a typed family update, not a Hallmark card with a signature, but a real handwritten letter. I would get one or two every couple of months. Most of them written when I was pregnant with my first baby and just like our visits some of the letters were filled with a important message and others just to say hi and let me know she had been thinking of me. I have all of these letters.
I remember reading them when she was still here but somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I needed to save them so I could talk to her when she was not here anymore. Yesterday I did. I have not read them since she passed away almost 3 years ago. Some of them make me laugh and some of them make me cry. I am just glad that I "took care of my things" because it is like having a "little" visit with Nana when I read them. Sometimes it is just what I need. I have also had a few surprise visits from my Nana since she passed and it is only because I was taking care of my things. One of these surprises came when I was moving to Virginia and packing up some breakable items. Nana had given me a little figurine a year or two before she passed and I was just about to wrap it up in newspaper when I happened to look at the bottom. Stuffed inside a tiny whole was a piece of paper with a note. It said that my mother had given the figurine to her the year I was born and to "take care of it." I got a good laugh that day, the kind that makes you cry after your done laughing because you can't call her up and let her know you got the message.
Yesterday I added a few things to my box of letters. A picture of my daughter Isabella Shirlene, named after Nana. She never got to meet Isabella so I thought it was about time. I also added a few shots of Noah because she always talked about how fast he would grow up, and he sure has. I read one more letter before I closed the box. It had a picture of a little boy and a dog on the front. At the end of the letter she wrote, "Do you think Noah will have a little dog some day? I do." I put the box away and left to pick up Noah at school. As I drove down the street I saw a sign, PUPPIES FOR SALE. Oh Nana, you make me laugh. Miss you.
Get the DOG!
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