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| My half brother, NAN, my birth-mother 2005 |
Sorry to leave you hanging on for two weeks about my quest to locate my 96-year-old biological Nana; the notorious “Nan”. If anyone missed the original blog let me catch you up.
Now read this slowly or perhaps take notes this is complicated. I was adopted. I am an official hippy love child. I even lived in the Haight Ashbury district in San Francisco and then I went to Woodstock all in utero of course. Thankfully I wasn’t born on a muddy field in front of a bunch of tripping strangers. Thankfully I was born a month later at my birth mother’s grandmother’s house in Westport Massachusetts. I was put up for adoption and grew up in Boston & then Brookline. Ah… Brookline home of only the best people: JFK, Barbara Walters, Conan O’Brien, Mike Wallace, and a few nobodies like a chubby bald baby who grew into a fat hairy woman, me.
I found my birth family in 1997. My birth mom was in California & her family was on the east coast, my closest relative geographically and emotionally was my Nan. She only lived an hour away from me. We saw each other a lot and became friends. She was the coolest 90-year-old girl chick in the world. Then during a disgraceful pregnancy-hormone driven season of insanity in 2005 (to which I am trying to forget) I made 2 Chernobyl sized mistakes that involved having my birth-mother’s colorful 23-year-old son come live with us and deciding to help Nan clean out one room of her house. In June I was dancing at a birth family wedding and by fall the whole birth family had shunned me. Why? Let me make a long rant short. Basically my sweet Nan had 90-years of accumulation in her house and a bad memory. She thought that I stole some of her stuff. In reality I filled 8 black yard bags of what I thought was “trash” and dropped them off in a public dumpster. My half brother and house mate was there too as my witness, but instead he started playing for Birth-Team-Shun.
Poor Nan, heartbroken that after 10 years of happily going out to lunch and thrift store shopping that I her favorite granddaughter was in fact a callous cold blooded crook who apparently preys on 90-year-old ladies. I was heartbroken that my Nan would ever believe such things about me and even more so that my half brother didn’t defend me and set the family straight.
Fast forward to fall 2012 Nan contacted me and told me that her old house caved, was condemned (which shocked me that it took so long), she was living across the street with her neighbors, and most importantly she was done being mad and wanted to see me. I missed her so much and was so relieved that she was still living that I drove an hour to her house that day.
When I last left you I had driven to her neighbor’s house, avoided being eaten alive by their two chained up pit bulls. I knocked on the door, I yelled for her, I rang the bell, and I called the house and left a message. Then I parked across the street in her old driveway and waited. I assumed that if she was out she’d return before I had to drive home and get the kids. I am sitting in my car playing Angry Birds on my ipod when I see a hunched over little old lady in a bright red sweater slowly hobbling across the street with a cane and open the mail box. Is that Nan? She looks so tired and old.
I jump out of my Subaru. “NAN!” She looks over, sees me, straightens up and walks quickly towards the car. We meet on the lawn in a long embrace. Nan grabs my hand and invites me across the street to her new home. As we start crossing she hunches over the cane and begins the slow hobble again. She sees my curiosity.
“Honey, I always walk like this across the street. When the drivers see a little old lady they slow down”
We get to the house and she throws the cane on the couch and makes me a cup of coffee. She is zipping around the kitchen at a hundred miles an hour. This woman is at least 96 years old, no one really knows for sure, and she could still out run me any day of the week.
I ask her why she didn’t get the door when I knocked, rand the bell, and yelled? In perfect Nan style she says “Oh I don’t know” and looks up at the ceiling. “I thought I heard something, but I thought it was the dogs.” I give her a look.
If you know my Nan then you know that she knew I was out there. She at least heard the long message that I left on the answering machine right next to where hew coffee and magazine is spread out. I bet she heard the message and need at least 2 hours to shower, do her hair, pick out a nice outfit, apply her make-up, and perhaps fix up her nail polish. A true glamour girl never rushes. She did look great. We chatted and smiled a lot. Our 6 year separation quickly evaporated leaving comfort and easy conversation. Nan looked across the table at me.
“Well honey, you’re losing weight!” I smile. “You look good!” I thank her and within an hour we are holding hands walking through our favorite thrift store. Just like old times.
