Today is granny’s birthday. She is gone now. None of my grandparents are alive. Granny is the only one I miss though. I often ponder why that is. She was not the one who did the most things for me. That would be grampa. He bought me my first bicycle. He made sure I got braces. He took me to get my driver’s permit. He took me for my first hot dog and milkshake and taught me to swim in Macqueripe.
My cousins and I all fight over who was granny’s favourite. It’s really no contest though; I am the eldest and clearly her favourite long before the rest arrived. 🙂 I was her tomato. But it goes to show how she made each of us feel special. We all knew that granny loved us personally. Not a generic, ‘I love my grandchildren’, kinda love but a personal appreciation and care for each individual.
No matter what, I knew that granny believed in me. It was the little things she would say, “Matik I always admired how you handled your divorce. Things didn’t work out but you made sure that XXX was well taken care of.” Or, “Mats you have a good heart and the Lord knows that.” Or if she knew I was going through a rough patch, “You gotta roll with the punches Mats.”
She worried about every one of her grandchildren and wanted to know the details of everything that was going on in our lives. I remember when I started going out at night as a teenager, no matter what time I got home, granny was up at the dining room table reading until she was sure that I had made it home safely.
Granny was special. In the weeks before she passed away, I went to visit her and some of her last words to me were, “Thank you Matik.”
“For what granny?”
“For being you.”
Thank you for being you, granny. You are my hero. I miss you but I know that you are still in my corner.
PS: I know you love flowers. These are for you.
Joyful tears,
Copyright 2018, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.