#NerdsUnite: A #loving ode to my grandmother

SOOOO!!!! Kind of a weird day today for me on a personal level, today marks the one year anniversary of my grandmother's passing. Still kind of trips me out that it's been a year, and on the flip side-  it already feels like a lifetime.

Immediately after I said goodbye to her, I did the only thing I knew how to do to process it - I made a video. Like literally, it's still sitting right here ...

My grandmother was a very interesting lady. My family in general are oddly fascinating creatures. People from Connecticut, man - they are just such a different breed. But anyway back to my grandmother ... the best way to describe her is by saying she did the best that she possibly could have. She had her ways .... haha, I'm totally tip toeing around posting this if you can't tell. My family gets a bit perturbed, I am looking to heal wounds not create new ones - but at the same time, I'm always honest. So I'm just gonna spit it out.

My grandmother was a tough broad. She grew up with the most amazing parents ever. Seriously, I never met my great grandparents, but my great grandmother was the spitting image of Liz Taylor, and was even scouted to be in movies back back back in the day in Bristol, CT - and my great great grandmother wouldn't let her go to Hollywood. Trippy, right? But my nana was a stunningly beautiful creature. If you ever see me wearing my golden locket, there's a picture of her in there. She was in her 70s I believe when she passed, but she literally looked like she was in her 50s. We have really good aging genes in my family.

Either way, I digress ...my great grandmother married a dude that commercially speaking wasn't nearly as attractive as she was. If my nana was a 10, my dad-dad was a 6 on a good hair day ... but they loved each other dearly, and were just two peas in a pod. I ain't mad at it, but my grandmother however took more after her father than her mother. It created this odd complex in my grandmother's mind, and this unbelievable rivalry between her and my nana for dad-dad's attention. My grandmother was an only child, and just sort of came out of the womb a rather bitter Betty. I don't know how to explain it, but the grass was perpetually greener on the other side, I sincerely question if she ever felt like she had enough.

Fast forward to her late teens, she started dating Bruce Hood (of the Hood milk fortune) ... not really sure what went down, as this story has been stretched for years and years and years ... storytelling is in my genes ... but either way, she stopped dating Bruce - and not too long after started dating my grandfather. The two met at a Friendlys I believe (please don't hate me for not remembering all of this mom), and the rest was history. Their courtship was intense, I recently went through some of the letters my grandfather sent my grandmother, and it totally made me choke up. My grandfather wasn't a very loving human being just by his nature, so to read how much he was going to take care of my grandmother for the rest of her life was just the most beautiful thing ever. Mind you too, this was all written on a typewriter - incredibly. incredibly. incredibly romantic. Tangent: HAHAHA!! OMG I can't even imagine my grandkids one day combing through my blog posts. Grandma went out on 102 dates in 9 months?!?! WHAAAATTT?!?!?! Yep, back in my day there was this great site called OkCupid ... hahahahahaha epic.

So, my grandparents get married - and shortly after my grandmother gets knocked up and produced my aunts and my loverly mother. My mom's the youngest, I like to think it took my grandparents two test rounds to finally get it right. Wait, did I just say that outloud? I kid ... I kid ... only I'm not kidding ... at all. HAHAH!! Oh families. Either way, my mom and my aunts had a pretty gnarly childhood. That part, isn't my story to tell, but bottom line, my grandfather developed a really rad drinking problem and my grandmother had to pull the family up by their bootstraps by grabbing control of the finances and bring the family back together after my grandfather let it all go to the booze. Tangent: My grandfather had one of the biggest hearts in this world, but literally had no coping skills. Like, zero. His mama was one of the meanest people on the planet and used to whip him as a child. When I was 9, I remember looking at the scars on his back from when he would take lashings with a cat and nine tails. Literally. The most frightening thing to show a 9 year old. Can't even imagine though what he went through. Really. Really. Really. Sad.

My grandmother never let my grandfather live that down, and literally to the day he died, she managed the finances. He got an allowance, and it was very much a no bullshit kind of relationship. He needed a mother, she needed to release all of her bitter Betty energy. When I say this was a match made in history, you have no idea. They yelled and yelled and yelled and yelled - and I dunno, somehow they just both made it work. My grandmother, however, never let my grandfather forget that she could have married Bruce Hood and her life would have been so much easier financially speaking. Dude, she even used to tell us the story of her and Bruce. Kind of a fucked up thing to say to your grandkids since technically speaking you're saying that you were kosher with us not even being around. She meant well, I am convinced of that fact - but her execution was always a little misplaced.

I grew up not having a relationship at all with my dad's parents, so my grandparents made up for it by taking us to their lake house in New Hampshire every summer. There were a few kids at the lake, but I preferred to be around the adults and play cards. I was an epic, epic, epic solitaire player. HAHA omg I've literally been a loaner forever ...

I had cards, crackers, diet coke, and my doggie - life was bueeennnnoooooo.

Of course intermittently there was yelling at everything from the TV being too loud, to my grandfather being rude by reading at the dinner table. We'd ask him all the time if he was deaf, and my grandmother would say  that he had selective hearing. They were kinda like Archie and Edith if Edith was curmudgeon with a pair of brass testicles she played with in her made of straw, size of a piece of carry-on luggage, purse.

The financial strain felt in the early years of their marriage never left my grandmother's psychology. Even after they fully recovered, and did fairly well for themselves in the real estate market - they always. always. always. looked for the deals, and were always. always. always. trying to save.

One summer, when I was about 11 - they wanted to drive to Vermont to go to this chinese restaurant with this really awesome early bird special. Great, sounds good ... but my grandfather putzed around too much and drove a bit like an old fart that day specifically to piss off my grandmother (ohhhhhhh he was the best button pusher ever). We were still a little ways out, and we had less than 10 minutes to go until the end of the early bird. Remember, this is New England folks - they are SERIOUSLY strict on the early bird timing, and there was NO way my grandmother was going to spend the extra money if she didn't have to. We pull up to the driveway with LITERALLY a minute to go, and my grandmother goes - JENNIFER!!! GET OUT!!!! I look at her and say, but the car is still moving!!!

TUCK AND ROLL JENNIFER!! TUCK AND ROLL!!!!!

(HHAHAHAA omg I am in stiches recalling this story)

I leap from the car which at that point had slowed down a bit, but was still going at least 15 mph. I make a mad dash to the door cutting off this old couple walking in. Hey, I was 11 and on a mission ... I'll take bad karma over dealing with my grandmother angry ANNNYYY day of the week.

Out of breath I make it to the hostess stand and say 3 please, for the early bird. Sure, right this way she goes, as I huff and puff. YESSSSS!!! SUCCESSSSS!!!!!!!!!

My grandparents walk in ... did we get it? Did we get it?? I smile, not wanting to yell across the restaurant.

Victory ... sweet sweet victory ... oh and totally not kidding btw when I say that the old couple didn't get the special - HAHA! We were very literally the last ones. WEEEEEE!!! Yay life, I totally helped her save the $10 or whatever it was. Screw potentially fucking myself up by jumping out of a car, I was 11 - I had no idea and bones can totally bounce right back. Right? Right?

HAHA!! omg - that story will never get old. Tuck and roll Jennifer ... Tuck and roll ...

Alrite, one more - hahahahaaha my grandmother would roll over in her grave if she knew I was telling the world these stories.

When I was 8 they took me shopping up at the lake (I have no idea btw where my brother was on both of these instances - but usually I had my brother around to smack some sense into them), and on the way back they had to stop off at Brooks Pharmacy to pick up a prescription or something. My grandmother said she would just be a second, and that my grandfather and I should stay in the car. Not a problem, I just sort of looked out the window and started making animals out of the cloud formations. A couple minutes go by, and my grandfather said he was going to go inside - the car was too hot. He takes the keys, tells me not to leave, and goes inside.

Fuck this, you're too hot in the car so you go inside to leave me?!?! What is going on here?!?! I watch him walk all the way inside, open my car door, lock it - and run into the air conditioning. Tangent: I was a super small human being growing up, like crazy small. I didn't even grow until I was 16 and shot up from 5'3 to 5'7. My nicknames in elementary school were peanut and french fry. I was a dancer and just absurdly tiny.

I walk inside the pharmacy and see my grandfather reading the newspaper up front, typical - and I see my grandmother in the back talking to the pharmacist. I decide I was going to just check out some of the stuffed animals and amuse myself while those two figured their own things out. I sat down, and started to rummage through the bin. A couple of minutes go by, I look over and still see my grandfather up front, but no longer see my grandmother. Alrite, I think my grandfather is right there ... I'm still fine - they can't leave without me. A couple more minutes go by, I manage to get lost in my own imagination, snap out of it, look up and no longer see my grandfather. FUCKKKK I think!! Well, not literally, I was 8 - so it was prolly more like FUUDDGGEEEE!! (haha who am I kidding, I totally knew every curse word in the book at 6, just might not have organically known how to implement it properly.)

I run to the front of the store, no grandfather. I run to the back of the store, no grandmother. When I say run, I am literally running. The pharmacist comes out and asks if I need help. Yes, I say! I don't know where my grandparents are. I begin to cry.

::SPLIT SCREEN::

Picture it: Same time, my grandparents sitting in their Buick Le Sabre having a loverly conversation, on a loverly day ... my grandmother turns around and says something along the lines of, my Jennifer - you are quiet this afternoon. John (my grandfather) is she sleeping? She turns around ... Jennifer??! Jennifer?!?! JOHN WHERE IS JENNIFER. The brakes screech as the car comes to a stop and immediately turns around. 

They pull up to the pharmacy. I am standing outside with the pharmacist with tear stained cheeks and blood shot red eyes.

I say nothing.

The car door opens, Jennifer! Come inside! Where did you disappear to?! Why did you leave the car when I told you not to??!!

I say nothing.

Mind you, they were half way home at this point. They were gone a solid 20 minutes which for a kid left in a store feels like an ETERNITYYYYYY.

Out of fear I would tell my parents who would chastise them, my grandfather pipes up and says, well - I think it's about time for some ice cream! We stopped down the street, and I got a vanilla cone. With each lick I plotted exactly what points in my story I was going to break into tears to my parents. How. Dare. You. Hoooowwwwwww daaarreeeeeee yoouuuuuuuuuu.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Omg these stories make my life.

My grandparents did the best they could do considering that they just very literally did not know better. My grandfather told me on his deathbed that above everything else in life, I should "be happy" ... and my grandmother who literally had the slowest death ever, taught me to not be afraid. She had gone to church every.single.week. praying to a God she so firmly believed in, but when it came time for her to meet her maker - she ran the other way so fast it wasn't even funny. I never understood how she could say she believed in something like that, but when it came time to test it - she wanted nothing to do with it. It made absolutely no sense to me, and was another reason why I started to follow my gut with Buddhism.

So, today I say a prayer for my grandmother, and for my mom who is still healing from her loss. I miss her terribly but in a weird way. I kinda just wanna pick up the phone and start shooting the shit with her. She gave you her opinion whether you asked for it or not - and even if she was a total pain in the ass, she was my pain in the ass. She was the only grandmother I ever had, the only grandmother I knew - and looking back, dude, she gave me some of the greatest stories ever. hahahaha!

I love you Grabey. Here's to hoping you're still giving 'em all hell.

#nerdsunite