Nana

This week is going to be less writing and more March Breaking, which isn’t doing much because my kids don’t want to do anything. It’s hard. I miss the days of lugging them around, plopping them in car seats and strollers and doing stuff! Nowadays going to see Captain Marvel no doubt outshines any trips to a sugar bush.

I got away this weekend, on my own which was wonderful! I took the early train to Union Station where I picked up my aunt who was loaded down with bagels and coffee and we took another train to Whitby. We spent the entire day with my Nana who turned 92 this weekend. Nana is amazing. The fact that she is 92 is a mere technicality, she is smarter and funnier and braver than I’ll ever be.

Nana lives in a retirement village in Whitby, alone now after my Boppa passed away three years ago. The end of February marked what would have been their seventieth wedding anniversary. She misses him fiercely, we all do. Although she has has friends and activities to keep busy, at times she’s lonely, of course she is. The thing she does that amazes me the most is how she so clearly knows what she needs and she does it. She says ‘no’ to things when she feels like it, she walks when she needs to, she reads or doesn’t, she rests or doesn’t. She advocates for good among some people who are unable to keep an open mind in a world that is far different than theirs may have once been. She tells people not to be racist or homophobic with gentle and quiet words. She is kind. She and a friend work year round sending packages to schools in Northern Ontario for students in need. She is wildly funny and intelligent. She has never closed herself off to ideas or experiences that challenge her. She is realistic and doesn’t like everyone because shes’ real, and you can’t like everyone. She puts up with constant pain in her legs and the doctors who tell her there’s isn’t anything they can do.

On Friday, when my aunt and I visited, we drank wine and ate chips and talked and laughed for eight hours straight, often cutting each other off with more things to say. It may have started out being Nana’s birthday we were celebrating, but it was also the best Women’s day I’ve ever had.