Saying goodbye

My grandmother with her eldest daughter, Olive Ann.

I'm pretty sure I know what Heaven is like. I think it's endless amounts of time in which you can sit not just reading a book - but thoroughly enjoying what you're reading - without worrying about the laundry or the bills or job security or people dying. Instead of endless goodbyes, it's a series of wonderful hellos as loved ones pop in to spend eternity with you. 

My granny had six children during her long life. She lived nearly a century so I thought those children also would live that long. I was wrong.

My aunt and uncles are together once again. Here are Olive, Albert and Herbert with baby Raymond.

Uncle Herbert died first. Then Uncle Raymond and Uncle Albert slipped away. Now Nanny's gone. They died one after the other, as if Granny were calling them to the Heaven one by one. Only my mom and Aunt Marilyn are left, and we're taking them to the doctor's office once a week from this point onward.

All their deaths were hard. Nanny's death, though, really hurts because she was my mom and aunt's best friend.

Nanny and Aunt Marilyn with my cousin Nick. In the background is my mother and baby Amber.

She wasn't even really my Nanny. She was my Aunt Olive who was supposed to be my godmother, but my parents never got around to baptizing any of us. Still, I always called her Nanny. Then my little sister started calling her Nanny. I think my younger cousins called her Nanny. The name stuck even though I knew in my heart of hearts that she was supposed to be my godmother - not theirs. I was honored to have such a connection to such a special person.

No one is a saint. We all have flaws. Somehow, though, Nanny was practically perfect in every way. Her kids have suffered a tremendous loss with her passing. The rest of us - sisters, nieces, nephews, etc. - are just very sad.

So beautiful - inside and out.

What can I tell you about Nanny? Pictures of her as a young girl show a stunningly beautiful person. If you think a young Elizabeth is a looker in "The Crown," then you haven't seen pictures of Nanny. She had to have been the prettiest girl on Bayou Boeuf.

She also was fun. She liked to dance and go to the Cut Grass in Morgan City. She'd wrap a scarf around the bedpost and practice her dance moves. She liked games and set a rule that Monopoly was to be played until someone actually won. Some of this I knew. Other things I learned after she died.

Nanny holding my Aunt Marilyn. 

Nanny married young and raised five kids. She was a voracious reader and liked to do crossword puzzles. She had a thing for knicknacks featuring lighthouses and mooses (meese?). She made the best vegetable soup in the world.

She seemed mild-mannered, but she had a backbone. She was kind and soft-spoken, but she had gumption. She also wasn't naive. That's a tough combination to master.

The Mona Lisa smile: Granny, my cousin Sheila and Nanny with a newborn Amber.

Looking through pictures in which Nanny posed with grandchildren and great-grandchildren as babies, I noticed something. In most of them, Nanny isn't looking at the camera but gazing at the baby with a Mona Lisa smile. It reminded me of the time she came to my house for a slumber party for my mother's birthday. Spotting a picture of her granddaughter Olivia on the kitchen wall, she asked if she could have a copy of it. She loved the expression Olivia made in the photo. Nanny had such a fondness and affection for babies, but especially, of course, for her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren.

Glenn and I went to England last year, and I asked my aunts what they wanted back. Nanny told my Aunt Marilyn that she wanted something with Princess Charlotte on it. I hunted in every tacky gift shop I saw until I finally found a key ring with Princess Charlotte's face on it. Later, Nanny said something had been garbled in the translation. She wanted Princess Charlotte herself.

Nanny was the eldest of my grandparents' three girls. My mom and her other sister, Aunt Marilyn, arrived nearly 20 years after Nanny was born. There are pictures of them as little girls holding Nanny's first child. Still, they were always very close to Nanny.

Aunts and cousins at the zoo. Nanny clowned around and covered her face with a camera. 

Nanny spent most of her adult life in Gibson. She lived in a snug little house that her husband, my Uncle Ricky, built. My grandmother eventually moved across the street.

When I was growing up, we'd go to my Granny's house and the dust would hardly have settled from the cars crunching into the shell driveway before my Mom and Aunt Marilyn were heading across the street for coffee at Nanny's. I didn't understand this for the longest time. Granny had coffee, but somehow Nanny's coffee was better. Really, they just wanted to settle onto the bar stools in Nanny's long kitchen and talk to her while she stood on the other side of the counter and smoked a cigarette.

Beautiful Nanny.

That's how I'll remember Nanny: in her kitchen. Guests were always on one side of the kitchen counter. Nanny was always on the other side, a cup of coffee or a cigarette in her hand. She'd pour the coffee and gently laugh at what her guests had to say.

What I also will remember most about Nanny is that everyone liked her. I never heard anyone say a negative thing about her. She didn't want a funeral because she didn't want people to be sad. That was probably a good decision because everyone is very sad that she's gone. There wouldn't have been enough Kleenex in the world to dry the tears at a funeral for her.