Everyone’s Grandma is the “best Grandma in the world” I will not deny this. Grandmas forgive you no matter what, they give you candy, and hugs, and presents, and play with you. It’s not that parents don’t love you, or want to spend time with you, it is that they are just “busy”. They have to fold laundry, or make dinner, or clean the house. Grandparents have plenty of time for those daily things while the grandchildren are away, and when the grandchildren are there, their undivided attention is on them.
I think that my grandma had a very special relationship with each of her grand kids. Orion was the first one, so she loved him to the moon and back, as every first grandchild gets this special love. I was the first girl, so she got to spoil me with dolls and tea parties. Casey and Bret were almost twins, and she was always having to keep them entertained and busy, otherwise they would surely cause trouble. James and Eric, were the next set of “twins”, and with them she was starting to get older, but I think she had being a “grandma” down to the science by then. Reagan and Braelyn were simply spoiled rotten, she snuck them candy and treats non-stop and they just adored here. She was proud of every single one of us, no matter what our place was in life. I never heard her say one judgmental thing about any of us. Her advice was never one of judgement or of “this is what you should do”. All of us continued to visit with her and check in, cause she was always “different” than our parents. Parents have to give you advice to steer you in the “right direction”. Grandparents don’t need to. They leave that advice to their children and they are just there to listen.
The first time I knew that I knew that my grandma was not judgmental was the first time that she found out that I smoked a cigarette at a middle school party. My luck, I got caught, and probably the worst punishment to me was that my parents told my Grandma what had happened. She asked me “So I heard that you smoked a cigarette?”. I could not even look her in the eye, cause I was blinking back big, fat tears of shame. Honestly, I am not even sure why I was so ashamed, because she herself had smoked since she was 17 and so did my Dad. It was the fact that I thought she was disappointed in me. She gave the “so what” look that she gives, and said “Oh well, we all tried it”. I was shocked, I thought I was going to hear the same speech that my parents had given me about trust and responsibility, but she didn’t. Grandparents are different.
In College, every time my mom would call me, I thought,” this is it...this is the “call”. It was my Mom calling to tell me that either our dog Sammy had died, or my Grandma had. Every. Single. Time. So when she was just calling to ask me how my day was, or to update me on something else, I always gave a huge sigh of relief. Luckily, this “call” never happened for either situation while I was in college. This week, I got that call during the day from my Mom…
Almost every single weekend, the girls and I go and visit my Grandma. The past two week have been very busy at the Hernandez house. I went to Florida with my friends two weeks ago, and the following weekend was birthday parties and a Hernandez Family outings. So I had not seen my Grandma for two weeks, since Easter. It was not a weird feeling, but some sort of force that gently told me to go Monday after school. I had laundry, and dinner to make, and school work to do, but for some weird reason it did not matter. I knew that it would be a short visit, because she went to dinner at 4:30. I left school at 3:20, picked up Braelyn and we took the 15 minute drive over there. It was a regular visit with Grandma. Braelyn raided the cookie tin, and I told Grandma I would make her some more Chocolate Chip cookies cause she finished the ones that I made her for her Birthday. She said they were good to help her swallow down her pills with. I always pepper her with some sort of question that pops in my brain during the course of the week, and this time my question was,
“Grandma, why did you never remarry?”
She said “Well, I went to a singles dance once, but it was awkward and there were men on one side and woman on the other, and I was not one to just go over and ask someone. I never really felt the need, and I figured if it happened, it happened.”
We chatted a bit more about my week and my vacation away. I asked her if anyone died this week and how things were going with the new woman at her dinner table.
I think I will always feel bad that my last deep question to her was about her love life. But that question made me think of what a strong, independent woman that she was. That night, strangely I went home and wrote my lesson plan for my 5th graders Memoir, about my Grandma and how she is my inspiration for a strong woman...again weird that I had done that and shared it with my class the very next day. Energy works in mysterious ways, and in this case it happened two times.
Literally about an hour after I did that lesson, I got a phone call from my Mom at school. I rushed into the hallway to answer it and I hoped that it was my Mom forgetting that I was at work, but unfortunately not.
“ Tan, your grandmother is in the hospital, they found her unresponsive in her room”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No, I am not.” as I am sure that my Mom would not call and "joke" about this.
“Ok, I am on my way”
After, I blinked out tears all the way to the office, asking if someone could watch my class and luckily it all worked out. I drove as fast at the Ford Fusion could get me to Hoffman Estates.
The best part about my Grandma's passing, is that my family honestly have the best days together leading up to her death on Friday. All those stories that I had heard over my life, were crammed into a hospital room and shared out loud with my Grandma right there with us. Not a whole lot of tears, but a whole lot of laughing. As we sat around my Grandma, I felt she could hear us and I am sure if she could, that she would just kind of give a little chuckle and a half eye roll, as she always did. Now that she is gone, we will not be able to pop into visit to ask her those questions, but now we will have to ask each other, or can improvise them.
