Granna

Yesterday was a long day. That whole get a new pay-the-bills job is definitely a priority, so I was busy filling out applications. I was working at a small family-owned restaurant, but they’ve had to make some cut-backs and I was one of them. Since I’m a horrible waitress, it wasn’t a huge shock. There aren’t a ton of places hiring right now, so I’ll take what I can get….but I hope I can get something in retail. Selling clothes or books is much more my forte than remembering orders and refreshing drinks.

Anyway, I’m up early this morning and I’m thinking about my grandmother. It’s her birthday today. My Granna is one of the most important people in my life…she and my Papa raised me from the time I was two (a long story in itself).

Their lifestyle is different from mine, of course. They are happy in their small southern town, knowing the same people they’ve known for sixty years and taking their walks around the same streets every morning and evening. They sit on the third pew from the front on the left side of the church every Sunday morning, go out on the beach every warm Saturday afternoon (Papa to fish and Granna to read), and they still plant a vegetable garden every year. Even though I left that place, needing change and risk and just something different, I think that there is something beautiful about contented people. And my grandparents are contented people.

When I think of Granna, a million memories come to mind. Sitting on the back porch, snapping green beans and avoiding those little green worms on corn husks…movie nights when we’d make popcorn and watch the classics (like An Affair To Remember and Little Women)…her insistence that I stand up straight…the perfect sweet tea she makes…the quiet way she is always there for people (taking over food when someone is sick and sending out cards for every occasion or hardship)…the scent of the Pond’s cold cream she used every night…the flowers she’d give me after every performance, even if I just had one line to say or was stuck in the choir…the way she still holds Papa’s hand when they’re walking together…her alto voice singing “My Funny Valentine”…her smile.

I know a part of her would like for me to come back home, get some sort of stable employment, settle down with a good man, and have a few babies. But she never says so, which is amazing when I think about all of the uncertainty my mother (still) puts her through.

If you ask Granna, I’m destined to be the greatest singer/actress the stage has ever known. During my growing-up years, she drove me to every rehearsal, put me through voice lessons, and was a part of every audience. She believes in my dreams, even when I don’t -- which is the best gift you can give someone.

I know she won’t ever read this blog (she still thinks that the internet is strictly for getting your identity stolen and/or getting addicted to pornography), but I’d like to say it anyway.

I wish the happiest of birthdays for the beautiful, wise, and fabulous Margaret Anne.