One Year Later

One year ago to the day my Nana died. It’s surreal to watch somebody you’ve known your whole life, especially somebody who was so feisty and full of life, go gently into that good night but sometimes people get sick and they just don’t get better. The week leading up to her the death was like a snowball that turned into an avalanche. When we took her into the hospital nobody thought she would be gone in a week. It seemed like something she had overcome before but slowly it dawned that this was different. She wasn’t getting better. It dawned on me after leaving the hospital on Wednesday that this was it but Thursday was the last day. Nearly everyone she loved was able to see her that day as she lay there. I wondered as people passed through if Nana ever thought this would be the way her lived in story would end. If when she was younger she thought her last moments would be in the company of her daughters, son-in-laws and grandkids. How did she think she was going to go?

I don’t really remember the last words she said to me but I do remember calling my mom when she took her to the hospital and hearing Nana say tell Jason thank you for calling. She could barely speak due to her hardness of breath but she still had the old world polite manners to thank me. Or how when she could barely function in those last hours she still had the Nana like instinct to point to people’s nails to remind them to get a manicure. That kind of stuff just floors me. She was as I like to say, a Nana.

I do remember though, the last words I said to her. It was getting late and was time to leave the hospital and I went over to her and started to say “I’ll see ya soon” but I stopped before the soon part because I thought soon was a weird thing to say. I didn’t want to say goodbye because who wants to say goodbye so I settled on my usual “I’ll see ya later Nana” and that was it. How can you say goodbye to somebody who you’ve seen nearly every day of your life? It’s a question I didn’t want to answer but came up with one anyway.

She died peacefully the next morning and the rush of the practical took over. By the end of the weekend was the funeral and the shiva call and then just silence and a remembrance candle burning away. Nothing to do but think about it and just keep on keeping on.

It’s been a year since she’s died and so much has changed. Her perfect Nana home on East 29^th street is now just another New York City apartment. My family moved out of our old area and have transitioned from proud Manhattanites to less boastful Queensers. I’m working at becoming a tour guide something that had never crossed my mind a year ago. I’ve fallen in and out (and in again and out one more time) of love with some very lovely women, but I could have guessed that one. Our country is being run by leaders with a frighteningly high degree of insanity and incompetence. In her high school yearbook from Washington Irving, dated 1946, the theme was about the hope of peace and unity that would come after World War II. Now it seems we’re farther than ever from those ideals. It’s been quite a year since her death.

But things go on I suppose. I felt guilty anytime I had fun for a period knowing she was dead. For me to be out experiencing things while she couldn’t felt wrong. I got over that but a weirdness still lingers on. I guess it may never fully leave.

One of the lasting memories from that weekend, other than the brutal cold, was thinking about how this was the first time I could remember Nana being the center of attention for a group larger than her immediate family. She hated any sort of mass attention and it seemed oddly fitting that her funeral would be the only event she would be the focus of. Just another thing that made her not just a Nana but the Nana and most importantly my family’s Nana. We miss you.