Matriarch

Simply gorgeous. This is my Gram. This picture was taken last year when she was 86 years old.

I've always felt a connection to her, as if we are cut from the same cloth. I see her as a very strong woman who has lived through a lot, and I believe I have inherited a bit of that strength.

She was born the daughter of a coal miner in Pennsylvania, the oldest daughter of 12 children. Her father died in a coal mining accident when she was eleven years old, but she still tells stories about how she would wait for him to get home from the coal mine...and how he always kept something in his lunch box that he would then give to my Gram.

Each of her brothers except one died at a young age. I only have met her two younger sisters and one younger brother. The last brother passed away last month.

I'm not sure how old she was when her mom died, but it was years before I was born. I've seen pictures of my great-grandmother, there are pictures where she looks about 90 years old, and she is actually in her early 40's. The result of a tough, poor life. My Gram has often told me that she wished her mom could have met me, that she would have been really, really proud.

There are a lot of things about my Gram that are kept "secret". I have often wished she could be unafraid and unashamed to tell us her full story. But she was born in a different time. Dirty laundry is kept secret, strength means never letting them see you cry. Or see you scared.

I suspect she had a young love prior to my Grandfather. I also think she was very much in love with my Grandfather, and they had a "good" life, until my drum-playing, ballroom dancing, pool hall patron of a Grandfather eventually left her for another woman. Last year my Grandparents' paths crossed, facilitated by my Aunt, and she reports that they clearly were saying goodbye to each other. After having four kids together, both remarrying, and after having been divorced for over thirty years, it was clear there was still love there...and they were saying goodbye. My Grandfather passed away earlier this year.

She has always been young at heart. She loves to be around young people, and usually prefers that to being around her peers. It cracks me up when she complains about all the "old people" at the grocery store. She is extremely physically active, still insisting on shoveling her own sidewalk. Her stamina, her energy has always impressed me.

She's not a very emotionally demonstrative sort (again...a trait I have inherited), and I do feel bad that my mother seems to have spent her life trying to gain love and approval from my Gram. She is strongly opinionated, and very politically incorrect. She is worried about our new President-elect, though she attempts to edit herself when explaining why.

I remember her saying once that mixed race couples are only in it for the sex, and that it's unfair to the children. I remember hearing about the advice she gave my Aunt on her wedding day "Be sure to always look good for him when he comes home." (This was shortly after her divorce.) So her views are not modern, and I don't particularly agree with her. But she did help shape the woman my mom is, and also the woman I am. She is part of the reason I have so much inner conflict regarding old vs. new.

When I went through my trauma around 14 years ago, it was around the same time that my Grandmother had been diagnosed with lung cancer and had to undergo surgery. We were both in a fragile state at the same time, and I think that caused her to open up to me a bit. Both her best friend and her second husband had just passed away during the previous year. She confessed to me that she was ready to go. Because of how depressed I was, I totally empathized with her feelings and didn't fight her about it at all.

The surgery was successful and she was cancer-free. She threw herself into her life, her family. Trying new things, going new places, traveling farther than she'd ever gone before.

She is the Matriarch of our family. Our extended family comes together for every holiday because of her. It was nice growing up with such a strong family unit, and I'm glad to see my niece and nephews reap the benefits of family ties.

When I went up to visit my family Halloween weekend, my Gram came with us to watch the kids go trick or treating. The next night she couldn't join us because she didn't feel well. She was terribly sick for weeks, the doctors said it was pneumonia and gave her antibiotics. She wasn't getting any better.

Just before Thanksgiving the doctors realized they misdiagnosed. The cancer is back. And may be in her lymph nodes. Getting the news floored me. I sobbed and cried and yelled, and the thoughts in my head took the form of prayers.

"Please, please!"

The response that came back to me was "What? What are you asking for? That she never go?"

I am scared. Scared of losing her. She is a fixture in my life that I cannot imagine being gone. I am afraid of what this is going to do to my mom, her sisters. Our family. My Gram is the glue that holds us together, I am afraid of it all falling apart.