February 3

When uncle Mike died, my grandmother “Nanoo” began reading books about time travel. She was always into the supernatural and believed in things like fairies, ghosts, and luck. She never spoke to me about Mike except for the time she received a piece of his mail.

“I can’t believe that they would send this to me,” she said, distraught. Her uncharacteristic loss of composure unsettled me. 

I found Nanoo’s recipe book on a shelf in her kitchen a few months after she died. There were many smaller clippings and notes she had tucked into the pages; most were recipes but some were book titles and one, in particular, caught my eye.

“I think I’ll have a nervous breakdown - I deserve it,” the note said in her tall, tilted handwriting. Her penmanship was always beautifully cadenced. Do people plan their nervous breakdowns? What state of mind do you have to be in to believe that a nervous breakdown is something you want and even deserve? 

Years later, as my two small boys were growing in size and demand, I understood the expanding burdens placed on mothers. Driving down the street, I thought, “What if I got into a small car accident? Not enough to be seriously or permanently injured but just enough so that I would have to stop working, stop taking care of everyone, just stop – and have them take care of me?” Another horrifying and comforting thought. I felt connected to Nanoo in that moment; we couldn’t bring ourselves to step out of the fire when we stood melting, consumed. How sad that life is so incredibly difficult that it seems more plausible to become incapacitated, or rely on the supernatural, than ask for help. 

“All I want to do is what I want to do,” Nanoo wrote in her day timer, “and that is to be with my friends and my granddaughters.” Much of her adult life was recorded in her day timers. Leafing through them, there were daily notes about the weather, chores, and who she visited. Hagen and I were there almost every day as our parents shuffled between work, college for Mama, time alone. In between babysitting, Nanoo visited with her siblings, went to Garden Club meetings, or had lunch with friends.

“I am just so exhausted,” she said. Over and over again, she is just so exhausted. Why couldn’t she see that she was doing exactly what she set out to do – to be with friends, family, grandchildren? She was a success; she achieved what she wanted to achieve. But what is it worth if she didn’t know it? 

Nanoo was still alive when I became pregnant with my first son. I traveled to Williamsburg to tell my Dad and Nanoo in person. We sat at her kitchen table chatting about things, when I finally said, nervously, “David and I are going to have a baby.” My Dad lit up with a big smile. Nanoo put her hand on his hand, her firstborn son, and said, “Sam, you are so rich.” 

I suppose my purpose is that connection. I don’t want to die never feeling the accomplishment of connecting with my children, my husband, my friends, and my family. I don’t want to miss out on connecting with strangers through my writing. It is not the mystical or accidental happenstances of life that have the power to jerk me toward happiness and success, or deliver me from grief and hardship. That power was within Nanoo, whether she recognized it or not, and now it is within me.