I’ve got it all here in my heart

On Monday, I woke up to a text that my friend’s grandfather had died and then a few hours later, the call that my Nanny had died. I crawled into my Florida bed and cried.

Nanny’s name was Catherine O’Loughlin and then Catherine Swan. Her siblings called her Coo. For a long time she drove a gold Chevy Cavalier with the license plate, COS1; when it died, she bought another. She had two parents, two brothers and a sister, one husband, seven children, and more grandchildren and great grandchildren than I’m willing to count. She was Catholic all her life. She was an avid reader, letter writer, and a fan of watching golf on television. She was an English teacher, a school board president, a Scorpio, and a fierce political advocate for quite possibly zero things that I believe in or agree with. She was a wonderful friend and maintained friendships that lasted her entire life. Papa loved to tell the story of the first time he met her—she came into the restaurant he owned and he turned to his brother to say, “I’m going to marry that girl.” And he would be correct.

I showed up in Nanny’s life late and Papa’s life later, but our years together were jam-packed. When I was a little girl, I spent most days with them at their blue and yellow house on Porter Street in Warren, Ohio. We watched lots of TV Land, especially Gilligan’s Island, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Get Smart. Sometimes, they would take me up to Papa’s massive VCR tape collection and pull out some of the movies he had once recorded on TV. My favorites were Papa’s favorites, the Marilyn Monroe ones—Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Some Like it Hot, There’s No Business Like Show Business. But Nanny cared about my cinematic education and made me watch The Sound of Music and Gone with the Wind. Often, we would go to K-Mart and they would buy me more VCR tapes, including the Bette Midler movie Beaches, which we proceeded to watch together and cry. 

The three of us would play school, I was the teacher, Nanny and Papa were my pupils. Nanny and I would also play Star Wars—she would play Han Solo and I, Leia. We took walks, made cookies, and shared bowls and bowls of mixed nuts. We would often stop and visit Nanny’s friends Pat and Eleanor who didn’t leave their houses often and bring them things they might enjoy. We went to lunch at Raptis and a now defunct restaurant that I miss called Mary M’s. I was an avid consumer of iced tea because my best friend was in her sixties and an avid consumer of iced tea. 

Nanny taught me how to read and write when I was very young and took me to the library several times a week. I befriended the librarians and consumed an entire children’s section’s worth of mermaid books. Nanny, my parents, and I continuously read a book called Word Bird, which is the reason my family still calls me Birdie. 

When my brother was born, Nanny would play Aunt May, Peyton would play Spider-Man, and I would play Mary Jane. Gross in retrospect, but just a part of our highly theatrical productions. She called me Dolly Baby and Peyton, Pay Pay. I was jealous of how much she loved Peyton when we were little, but grew to appreciate it—no one is more lovable than Peyton. When Lily was born, she didn’t have the patience to sit on Nanny’s lap to read or rest, she wanted to be moving and grooving and doing her own thing. Lily is untameable and Nanny didn’t get it, but she certainly respected it.

Once, Nanny and I got into a car accident on Elm Road. Once, Nanny found human fecal matter on her salad at the Ground Round. Once, I stepped on a mouse trap in her and Papa’s garage and they removed it for me. Once, she yelled at Papa when he called me a spoiled little bitch. When my uncle Bawky died, I remember sitting in a rickety black high chair while she told my mom what happened. When Papa died, she hugged me and cried and told me how much he had loved me.

Nanny wasn’t outwardly sentimental often, but she always cried when our pets died, and later in life, she always opened her side of the house to my parents’ slew of animals, including my crazy ones. Much like photo albums (which she kept too), Nanny kept books and journals full of funny things that people had said. Nowadays, my iPhone is filled with quotes from my parents, my siblings, my partner, and my friends that have made me laugh over the years. 

I don’t think my mom would venture to say that her and Nanny understood each other, but the two of them were close in a way that was undeniable. My mom has always told stories of her little girl self sobbing uncontrollably when she was separated from Nanny, something I would do as a child upon being separated from my mom. When my mom got pregnant with me, Nanny and Papa kicked her out and then proceeded to pay for her wedding dress and help her and my dad raise me. When Papa died, my parents moved Nanny into the house we grew up in. They decorated it to resemble a miniature version of the house on Porter Street that we all spent so much of our lives in. And then, as Nanny’s health steadily declined over the last eleven years, my mom steadfastly took care of her. When she had the choice between letting Nanny stay in long-term care or bringing her home to be her caretaker, the thought of being separated from her was too much, and so she brought her home. 

Nanny was a sucker for a joke, a sweet, a secret, a morsel of gossip, and an affectionate squeeze. We always joked that she loved my dad more than any of us, but I think she just appreciated how good he is. She bought my school clothes each year and affectionately disagreed with most of my clothing choices. She always wanted my hair to be blonder and when I dyed it dark, she lied and said it was beautiful. When I wanted to stay in Pittsburgh to work after my first year of college, she paid for my housing. Once I moved away from home, we wrote each other letters often. I remember the letter she wrote me after I had my heart badly broken, telling me stories of all the horrid heartbreaks she had before she met Papa. I remember the letter I wrote her after her brother John died. I took a picture of it because I wanted to remember what I told her:

“All I know is that sometimes it seems like there is all the time in the world and other times it feels like there will never be enough time. I don’t think there could ever be enough time with the people you love and that can be easy to take for granted. I love you. Thank you for teaching me how to read and write so that I could do the thing I love the most & so that I could be your pen pal.”

For the last several years of her life, she wasn’t herself. She struggled to remember and she lost the independence she valued so greatly. But she had moments of vibrant lucidity. One of the last times I saw her, I sat next to her chair and cried and she told me, “There was never anyone like you,” while she held my hand tightly. Two weeks ago, Joe asked her if he could marry me and he held her hand, too. Later that night, she told my mom, “Before I forget, Joey is going to propose to Chloe.” 

I’m very sad that she won’t be there when I get married but I also know that she will be. And now that their engagement ring is on my finger, I know I’ll feel her and Papa with me forever, even when I’m older and I too start to forget things.

The night she died, my mom sent me the letter that Nanny had left her. It was sweet and sad and funny. In the P.S., she told the story of a friend who was judgmental that my mom was having a wedding despite already having a baby. Nanny wrote, “‘Of course she is having a big wedding. The baby is wearing a white dress too.’ (And I hope you choke on it!)” It reminded me of a meme my mom once sent me that said, “I will not water myself down for you—you can choke.”

And so my smart, beautiful, feisty grandmother is no longer of this world and I’d rather be sad forever than forget how much I loved her. The past few mornings, I’ve been asking her to send me a message that she is okay and I got light breezes that I took for granted. But yesterday, I got a breeze so strong that the door rattled and Stella frantically asked to go inside. Then I looked up the word, “wind” on Spotify and here’s what came up: Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary,” for Nanny’s baby girl (my Meem) and “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” which you may recognize as the saddest fucking part of the movie Beaches.

I love you to pieces, Nan.

P.S. One time she called Peyton a “worthless piece of scum” and it is still the funniest thing that ever happened.