Let's start from the middle

Over the past few years I have started many a blog and never finished or edited one...I just wrote without purpose. Today I think I have found a purpose or a direction of some sort. Tonight while visiting my Nana, Alice, we were talking about the various jobs and experiences she has had in her life. She said Gabby, my teenage cousin said that she should write a book, but she said she wouldn't know where to start. So I decided, let me write her story, but let's write it in a way that genuinely represents our conversations. So I am starting this blog like so many of our conversations, in the middle. The conversations are always so rich, but we jump from one topic to another and thinking back I often don't know how we got where we ended up. Over the years, I have always loved to visit Nana, I have always loved the stories and insight, but most of the conversations end in more questions than answers. But tonight, I realized, the woman that I have known for so many years was more than just a Nana, she was more than a sister, a mother and a wife. She is a strong vibrant woman, who travelled, who made mistakes, who gave too much, and who is worldly in her thoughts. Over the years, and I would say before it was fashionable she had strong convictions about life and death. I want to know this woman for the person she is, not just the Nana. So tonight while sitting in her dimly lit room in her retirement residence we were chatting about a sick relative. She reminisced, and said " We say we believe but what do we believe? There is a God? Look at your mother and father dying so young. Here I am, why... I just sit her. God is not doing his job. Why isn't he healing the sick. Why do you think I am still here? What is the purpose." What could I say but " I guess as Oprah would say you still have some story left in you." Nana then went on to talk about the fact that she had fallen down stairs and lived to tell, fallen on the floor in her house many a time. She said that her brother missed one step, on a set of stairs and ended up dying. What I wondered, is how she couldn't realize how important and vital she was in my life...but then that's very selfish of me.. I reminded myself...It's not always about you. I also thought to myself, as upset as I was to lose both my mother and father in their 50's; I never thought why them and not her. As I have become a mother, I cannot imagine the pain of burying a child; I cannot imagine what that must take out of a person. The conversation quickly changed when Aiden, my 9 year old son asked me about a paper route. Nana asked me " Are YOU ready for a paper route?" She said " I know all I these paper routes, and you will end up doing it. Ask me about paper routes, I did it and I know all about them. Ross, your uncle, had a paper route with the London Free Press and he wouldn't get up out of bed to do it. He would say to me " relax lady I will do it" but he didn't move from the bed. Your Aunt Linda said she would do it and only did it once and said there were dogs chasing her. So I did it. I can't imagine that I did it. I think to myself how did I do all of these things; I must be crazy. I got good at it though, I practiced wrapping and throwing the paper and the kids would complain about the noise but I did get good at it. The Global Mail wanted to hire me. Can you imagine me a grown adult showing up at the office with all of these kids, riding bicycles." She sighed and laughed a little and said "The other day when I fell out of my chair; just slid down onto the floor....like a slide, I got taken to the hospital and I remembered that I also used to work in triage at the hospital. Triage is a good thing, they get everything ready in case you need to stay." It was 8:45 pm and everyone was starting to fade a little, so it was time to leave. I told Nana I would be back tomorrow and she said, don't worry I will see you at Linda's at Christmas. I asked if she was getting sick of seeing me and she said no but you don't have to come and I said to her I come because I want too. She said " That's nice, I told your Aunt you come when you have nowhere else to go, why would you come and see an old lady. She said your aunt said that's a nice thing to say" Talk about brutal honesty. I am thinking that means I haven't visited enough? I try to go every Friday but I have definitely missed a few...but not because I was doing anything, in fact because I was not doing anything at all. I will definitely, make the effort to be there more often. I always feel so much better after visiting. It's like a break from life sitting inside of a story and just watching it unfold.