I’m an hour late, but Valentine’s Day was my grandma Nana’s birthday (she hated the term ‘Grandma.’)
I basically grew up at Nana and Pa’s house. Nana would sit in her scooter (she had polio as a child) and drink Coke and read magazines and I would sit with her drinking Diet Coke and we would just talk, and laugh, and hang out. She was my best friend, and I was closer to her than any of my other grandparents.
One day in February, sophomore year, the phone rang and I was called down to the office. I was told that my grandmother was failing, and my first reaction was, “At what?” I couldn’t even wrap my head around the idea. My older sister and I went to the ICU and each got to talk to her, and she was the same old Nana, except instead of sitting at her kitchen table drinking Coke, she was laying in a hospital bed being fed ice cubes.
Every year on her birthday, her best friend, Karen, would make this delicious chocolate cake with caramel icing. I hate chocolate, but I grew up eating this cake and it was the only exception to the rule. Nana passed away a few weeks after her birthday in 2009. I can’t believe it’s been three years. I can’t believe she didn’t get to meet Ben, or see me graduate. I miss her all the time, but I know she’d be proud of me, she always was.
