Across my aunt’s dining room table are black and white pictures and handwritten letters from decades before I was born. It is a puzzle of love, family, history, and unknown moments frozen in time. She is piecing together stories and a timeline of Nana and Papa, her parents.
Looking at the pictures, my heart is filled with love and wonder. The people in the pictures are young and happy, and they hold stories I will never know but wish I did. When I was in high school my nana unexpectedly passed away, and six months later, my papa was gone too.
Almost a decade before their passing, I stood with my nana at my dad’s mother’s funeral when I was in elementary school. My hands were warmed in the fuzzy white fur coat as we walked outside in the bitter cold at Granny’s funeral. I was too young to comprehend what was happening or what was being said to me. Looking up at Nana, I heard her tell me, “Never forget about me.” Thirty-five years later, this is the memory I have from my granny’s funeral.
The legacy of my dad’s mother, my Granny, is limited. I was young when cancer took her away. My dad’s father passed away when he was in high school. Both gone too soon. On top of Granny’s refrigerator were Maurice Lennel pinwheel cookies in a tin container. She slept in a bed without any pillows. When she was thirsty, she said she needed to wet her whistle. The stories of her five boys and their shenanigans are timeless.
I remember arguing with my mom when we sang Christmas songs to my granny while dressed as gigantic Christmas presents. I did not understand at the time that it would be the last Christmas Granny would be alive.
To this day, when I hear people talk about their grandparents, my throat goes dry, and my stomach tightens. I am jealous. Before I graduated high school, all my grandparents had passed away.
When I think back to the memories of my granny’s funeral services and my nana telling me to never forget her, I think Nana said that out of love and fear. A fear of loving her family and being afraid of being forgotten, wondering what her legacy would be after she is gone.
Nana and Papa meant the world to me growing up. When we visited, they would secretly sneak us chocolate and money. Christmases were magical and the size and amount of perfectly wrapped Christmas presents were endless. During a sleepover at their house, I remember asking my nana to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She used bread, butter, peanut butter, and apricot jam. This was the first and probably the last peanut butter and jelly sandwich she made.
My nana would sit on the front porch and watch the Golden Girls. When she finally went upstairs to bed, she slept with her arm over her forehead and the radio on near the bed. Her taffy apple salad was my favorite food growing up. Looking back, I wonder if either of my aunts made this family-favorite recipe. Nana told us there were quarters in our mashed potatoes if we ate them. Papa made the best pancakes. They were paper thin and drizzled with the most delicious maple syrup I have ever tasted. I still haven’t figured out the right way to make the batter so thin.
Years after my nana passed away, I got a tattoo in her honor. It was a way for me to cope with the crushing grief of losing her but feeling like I still had a part of her with me. My family has my back, close or far away.
If my grandmas were still alive, I would want to know who they were as children, adults, women, spouses, mothers, and grandmas.
I would ask my granny how she persisted as a mother to five sons in a time when most women did not attend college, have driver’s licenses or jobs, when her husband unexpectedly passed away, leaving her as a single mother in a wooden spoon parenting generation. She raised five boys, mostly as a single mother, their childhood stories are entertaining and unforgettable.
I would ask my nana what it was like to leave England for the man she loved, move to the U.S., raise three daughters, and choose to stay in a foreign country with their families so far away.
Wondering about the legacy of my mother, I asked my kids what they like about their nana. They told me they like her because she makes them feel special, and she loves and cares about them a lot. She sings them angel songs passed down from her father and scratches their backs at bedtime. She is interested in their sports, encourages them, plays games, takes them fishing, and makes them really good food.
Whatever the name, Granny or Nana, these special women, do not want to be forgotten. They want to know that their love, commitment to their families, and memories last forever. As grandkids, the memories of how these special women made us feel will be the legacy we remember.
by Amy Keyes 
by Emily Roussell 
by Shannon Armenis 
