Posts

Showing posts from July, 2012

Maybe she'll rally

A week and a day ago, my grandmother, Vera, had a stroke. Every time I try to find the words to describe this woman, I fail. Aside from my mother, she is the most important individual influence in my life; from her, at the very least, I know that I have gotten many of my ideas about pride and about work, and from reflecting on the relationship between my her and my mother, I've developed most of my ideas about the necessity of forgiveness, and about the failures that are an intrinsic part of parenting. Most of all, from her I learned about strength, and strong is also the primary single adjective that I come to when thinking of her. She raised her daughter as a single parent in a day when this was hardly done. She provided for that daughter, and for that daughter's daughter, too, by dedicating herself to her work. She survived two bouts of cancer, and did so without - at least as far as I ever knew - feeling sorry for herself. She learned to dance after her first retiremen