My Gramma, My Hero

It sounds cliche to say that my gramma is my hero, but it's true.  As a child, I was not aware of all the details of her life before me.  All I knew was how her and my papa would wait extra long in line to buy my sister and me the McDonald's mini Beanie Babies, and when we would push the couches together for sleepovers, my gramma would sleep on the crack, and how she would always make me the perfect oatmeal and Rock N Rye ice cubes.  My gramma was the one who put Vaseline on my bum after a bout of diarrhea, and the one who slathered mayonnaise on my sister's and my head when we got lice that one time.

I remember the first time I heard her mention a past husband.  I overheard her on the phone, and it confused me, but she didn't lie to me about it, she just asked me not to say anything about it in front of my papa.  Over the years, I would learn so much about the trials and troubles she went through before becoming my "gramma."  Every new detail created a more developed image of the amazing woman I had the privilege to call gramma.  What is most inspiring for me as a young woman, is how she was still, always, the sweet "cookie lady" who went out of her way for everyone in her life, whether she just met you or had known you for years.  Young people she worked with seemed to love their "Rosie" as much as I love her. 

As a young girl, I remember waking up in the morning after our sleepovers, as my gramma was getting ready for work.  She sat in the kitchen, with a handheld mirror, doing her make up under the florescent stove light.  I would watch her, the plastic kitchen clock ticking, until she would catch me and tell me to go back to bed.  The ticking of a clock still transports me to that mobile home kitchen. 

As I got older, she would tell me about the young "foxes" she worked with and how she told everyone all about me, to my embarrassment.  She would smile at, and approach, nearly anyone wherever we went, whether she knew them or not, to my embarrassment.  But that was who she was, friendly and outgoing.  And it was something she never lost.  Even until a couple days before her death, she was chatting with and getting to know the women who took care or her and my papa.  A couple weeks before she died, she was still trying to give her Bingo money away to random children!  She never lost her spirit.

Once my gramma started forgetting details of my life, and the appropriate questions to ask me, she would revert to saying, "you're so beautiful" and ask if I was "staying out of trouble."  I would joke back to her saying that I get my looks from her, and that, of course, I was misbehaving.  And even the last time I visited, she told me she was proud of me.

I miss her, but I think about such memories, and it comforts me.  My gramma was strong and loving and important, not just to her family, but to nearly everyone she came in contact with.  It made my heart swell to hear so many stories about my gramma from the people who cared for her in her last months.

And that is why she is my hero: because through all of the hardships and heartaches in her life, my gramma was still the most loving and wonderful person many people have ever known.  Of that I am sure.