Goodbye Nana

On Labor Day, my grandmother passed away. I am still having a hard time believing it.

When I was little, I had what I called "Old Nana" and "New Nana". Old Nana referred to Nana Boles, my dads grandmother. New Nana was my dads mother, who of course was much younger. That went away of course, when Nana Boles passed away when I was 5. I still remember her. I remember seeing my mom sitting on her bed, holding her picture and crying when she heard she died. I remember her funeral, and my memory of it was just a bunch of people sitting in a room with her casket, all talking. I recently found out that it was exactly as I remember it. No service or anything like that.

So, after her death, "New Nana" just became "Nana".

She was always close when I was a kid. She lived in San Jose, and we saw her all the time. The summertime was always the best, since she lived in an apartment and we could go swimming. She had her dog, J.B., who used to play fetch with a tennis ball. He lived for that tennis ball. It was always fun, but, the ball would end up covered in dog slobber, but you didn't want to tell J.B. no. He was always so happy. He lived to a very old age.

I saw her less when I moved to Modesto when I was 11, but not that much less. I usually saw her everytime we went to San Jose to see our dad. She got sick of us having nothing to do when we went to her place, so she got us a Nintendo to have there. Before we had that, all we could do was watch whatever was on TV at the time. I remember watching news reports of the Tianenman Square crackdown on the TV in her bedroom.

I didn't see her as much the last few years of High School. She had moved to Bakersfield. I saw her the day after I graduated high school, and it had been over a year since I had seen her. After I moved to Oregon, I rarely saw her.

The last time I saw her was at my wedding in 2002. The last time I saw her, she was smiling and happy. I never saw her after she came down with emphyzema. She was a life long smoker, so her illness came as no surprise to anyone. I heard she had been doing a lot better, and I was relieved. I wanted to see her as soon as I found the time to go down there, and she still had not met my son. Knowing she was doing better meant I had more time.

A few days before she passed, my mom told me that my dad had called, and that she had been rushed to the hospital. Her neighbor went in to check on her, and she was gasping for air. At the hospital, her heart stopped. They got it going, but they had her sedated. This went on for a few days, until the call came on Monday morning. They were taking her off life support. Her heart was out for too long. She died later that day.

A week before, I was telling a friend that I had made it to 30 without losing a grandparent, and that I knew the next decade of my life, I would probably lose most of them. I didn't think it would start so suddenly, and I didn't think it would be her. She was only 69.

What really breaks my heart, and always will, is that she never met my son. The last time I spoke to her, I told her it upset me that she had not met him, but she said it was ok and knew I was busy up here. Still, I should have taken the time to go down there. The first thing both my mom and dad said to me was to not beat myself up over it. Sorry, but I can't help it.

I flew down to California in October to attend her memorial. We had her ashes scattered into the ocean. I think she would have liked that.


Back in '99, I flew down for Xmas, and one night I kept her up talking until about 3am. I would give anything to do that again.