Remembering Nana

Our minister, Nathan Stone at UU Waco, performed the funeral service for my grandmother this past Saturday. He always has the family write short pieces about the person they've lost. This is mine about Edna Kathryn Griffin Tankersley, also known as Nana:

Having Nana around always meant coming home to me. My fondest memories of childhood are almost all at her and Pa's house, where the Kool-Aid never stopped flowing, the apple pie was secret recipe and better than any you've ever tasted and the warmth of love for family was palpable. The best times were late on Fridays when I was in elementary school and I got to stay up late, watch Johnny Carson and drink a Coke with Nana.

I used to love to sit and listen to Nana tell stories about her life. The characters in those missives were people who had died years before I was born, but through Nana's voice, they became material again and I knew them personally. I recall fondly Nana's sister, named Helen, but always "Sister" in Nana's stories. Her favorite grandfather, Grandpa Griffin, or "Peg Leg," who had a prosthetic leg from the knee down and would say to Nana "Sing for me, monk" as she was a bit of a stoic child, which amused him to no end.

Stories come to mind about her Uncle Henry, who wrote letters from "Somewhere in France" in WWI, and her Uncle Clifford and Aunte Erie and the rest. They all played musical instruments or sang and would harmonize for hours for entertainment. I heard about the days before cars were common and her Daddy's two teams of horses, the Blues and the Greys; about Nana's horse, Dido, about racing trains on roller skates when she was nine. Nana made all these people live again, as vibrant as you or I as we talked while looking at the sepia-toned photos in her albums.

I recall watching Nana complete the crossword puzzle in each day's paper, after, of course, she had read it front-to-back, including the articles about places in the world most people skip over. Because of this, as I got older, we could have discussions about almost anything happening in the world and she'd know what was going on. Nana was always straight-up honest about things, she just didn't have any tolerance for anything untruthful.

She was so actively curious about the world around her. I was tremendously interested in everything political from about the '84 Presidential election onward. Much of this was due to Nana, because her enthusiasm was infectious. We'd talk together and research each candidate, sorting out who we agreed with and who we didn't. Whenever I had a test coming up she made the perfect study partner, hatching mnemonics to improve my memory. Along with my mom, the teacher, Nana encouraged me so strongly in academics. I remember writing projects where she'd sit with me for hours teaching me how to express myself on paper. One never needed spell-check with Nana around!

And oh, did she love her Dudley! Since I never knew my dad very well, I would not have had any reference for how marriage was supposed to work except for seeing Nana and Pa together. They were about as perfectly suited for one another as any couple I have ever seen. What a lucky break for me to have them around after school when my mom was still working.

Nana was such a positive person, being part of that generation that raised themselves up out of the depression and won WWII. No matter what challenges life gave her, she continued moving forward, making her family's way. She beat cancer twice, including the loss of her right eye and just kept on going.

I remember when we went on vacation when I was about four years old- I was exhausted, we had been walking all day. Little Nana picked me up onto her shoulders piggyback, and I didn't have to be tired any longer. When I think about it, that's kind of how she has always been- carrying our family along on her deceptively strong shoulders.

MBT