kistha

Originally posted by neo_prodigy at Spirit Day

My fiancée’s Grandmother Hane died Tuesday morning August 26, 2003. She was 94. She leaves behind her a husband of 96, two daughters, two grandsons and one great-granddaughter....and me.

I really got to know Hane this last spring as I took her to radiation treatments for the cancer that eventually killed her. She grew up on a farm/ranch on a tiny island in the Columbian river. She appealed to the side of me that grew up on tales of my Mother's family who had made their living in Idaho, ranching and farming. She was gracious, kind, generous, sweet, stubborn and firm. Her back yard was a garden that defied description. She was mostly blind and yet had a garden that could put professionals to shame, right to the day she died. It was always natural looking, and yet gorgeous. I was always early to our twice weekly appointments, afraid to be caught in traffic and then be late and be scolded by the nurses. But since I didn't want to bother her early I would wander her garden, and she would eventually notice me prowling about and come out and join me. She would feel the flowers and bushes, and then tell me what they were, and how to care for them, all by touch. She told me about Violets, Tulips, and helped me plot to steal a bloom or two off a neighbors Lilac tree on one memorable afternoon. She actually went and got a broom, I nearly died.

She and I would sometimes sit in the sun, in the garden and just talk. We talked of family, of the way people choose to live, things of my family and of her childhood. She told tales and so did I. Sometimes in the waiting room, after joking about the 'stylish little outfit' she would become afraid. I would just hold her, hugging her one sided in the chairs. Then we'd start talking about something else, just to get past it. After the treatments I would help her walk to the car, because the radiation tired her out. When I left her she would always tell me to go home and have a nap - because she was going to, and no one should turn down a well deserved nap. She started telling me every time I appeared to do anything - the house cleaning before a major surgery, or every radiation trip I took with her, "You do know you are one of the Angels don't you?" And I always answered, "This is what I am, this is what family does." Those car trips were never silent, and some days they were far from easy or comfortable. But I loved her, and I love her still. She had a keen eye toward a person's character and a discerning mind, and no-one pulled the wool over her eyes.

She always had Christmas eve dinner at her house, and while the dinners were at first stiff I never felt unwelcome, and they always ended in laughter. I will never forget the dinner when she on topic admittedly but, in a nonsequitor fashion declared, "I have guns, somewhere." Considering that she had recently angrily discussed "shooting her in the eye" about a neighbor at their cabin, I choked trying not to laugh. This was a tough woman even in her 90's. When I got engaged to her Grandson, she gave me a cut-crystal candy dish that had been part of Uncle C's wedding set, who my fiancée is named after. She always made me feel welcome, and I have always loved her for that too. She was much more like my family, I so wish that my family could have met her. Now she won't be at our wedding in body, but she'll be with us in spirit. Sometimes though that just isn't enough.

She always appeared to be highly refined, and very much a lady of society, and so when she would do things that harkened back to her farm upbringing - like owning guns, or stealing a neighbors flowers causally it was such a delicious shock. Very no-nonsense and very sentimental she was a woman of opposites. Something I can certainly respect. Independent and worried about her husband's failing health to the end, I am so grateful I got the chance to truly get to know her. She gave me a window into her world, and I've never regretted a second that I spent looking out that window. She was brave, honest, kind and fussy. A real whole person unto herself, who apparently in the thirties used to "happily crack protocol" with a monkey puppet popping out of her furs in the classiest hotel lobby in the Pacific Northwest.

You go Hane.