A Tribute to My Nana

On Sunday December 18^th, my family lost our Nana. Nana was my great-aunt on my mother’s side. She was the sister of my grandmother, but Nana was the only grandmother I knew.

I never met my grandmother. She tragically died when my mother was 2 years old so my mom does not have any memories of her mother. After the death of my grandmother, her 2 sisters took it upon themselves to care for my mom, and my mom lived with each of them as she was growing up.

Nana loved me and my brother and treated us as if we were her grandchildren even though we were not. We would go her house and swim, ride her 3 wheel bike around her mobile home park, get birthday cards with $1 inside the card and so much more. As I grew up, I began to have questions about the grandmother I never knew. Nana became the only link I had to my grandmother, and would always welcome any questions I had about her.  One day, I took to trip to visit Nana at her home in Los Banos with my aunt to hear all about my grandmother. Nana sat with me for a few hours telling me stories about the life and the untimely death about my grandmother.  That day, not only did I feel closer to my grandmother, but I especially felt closer to Nana because she had let me into this private part of her heart as she told me stories about the sister that she loved so much.  

Towards the end of Nana’s life, her memory was gone and at times, she didn’t know who her family was. But she remembered my grandmother and at night as she laid in bed, she would be talking and laughing with my grandmother. Probably re-living a childhood memory that she spent with her sisters or who knows……maybe my grandmother was there in the room with her!

Now that Nana has passed away, I find comfort in the fact that she is reunited with her sisters. I can picture them sitting down together and Nana telling my grandmother all about my mom, my brother and me and about my brother’s kids.  I picture her telling my grandmother that even though things were hard for her at the time of my mom’s birth, my grandmother has a beautiful family and her legacy lives on through the lives of her daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

   

Thank you Nana for being a mother to my mom. Thank you Nana for loving me like a granddaughter. Rest in peace. I love you and will forever be thankful to you.