or think good thoughts (if prayers aren't your thing) for my grammy:
(this picture is... five years old, i think.)
she fell down and broke her hip today. she is having surgery tomorrow morning. she had to spend all day waiting around in the emergency room, from 11:30 am to just past 8 pm. poor grammy! her nurse is actually a woman that my mother grew up with. small world. she told my mom that grammy is really funny. i'm glad to know that she is feeling well enough to make others laugh. they gave her some morphine tonight and she told my mom it didn't hurt at all, even before the morphine. as my dad would say, she's a tough old broad.
maybe when you are 96 and have seen so much, lived through SO MUCH.... a broken hip probably really isn't a big deal. i don't think she's scared. in fact, i don't think she's ever been really scared except maybe when she was five, when her mother died and her father dropped her and her sister off at an orphanage. she lived there until she was 16. they told her she was free to go then, but she had nowhere to go, it was the only home she'd ever know, so she stayed and worked there for two years before she went to college where she was PHYSICAL EDUCATION major! her name is mildred, middle name emily, which is my middle name, but she has gone by the name of CHICK for years. "chick & dick", my grammy and grandaddy. when i was a kid, we played yahtzee for hours on end. she is the reason that i have an intense love for jackpot yahtzee. and also the reason why i have bad memories of cottage cheese and lettuce salad washed down with lukewarm milk. blech! but you had to eat whatever she put in front of you, and you only got one glass of milk with each meal, so there was no swallowing bites with big gulps of milk.
i love my grammy. she is not your typical grammy who hugs and gushes. she tells it like it is, no bullshit, and she can be downright mean. i love her for that. if you piss her off, or she thinks you look ugly, she will DEFINITELY tell you. it's an admirable way to live, for the most part.
i'm pretty sure that her surgery will be no big deal. i feel terrible that i haven't seen her since christmas but i am glad that i sent her a mother's day card with a long letter last week. and when we go home to CT for chris's sister's high school graduation, we will stop there on our way home, maybe with a carton of shady glen chocolate chip ice cream. and tomorrow i will send some flowers, though she probably will just say that was a waste of money since they just die, and she will have a point.
good lady, i am proud to be your granddaughter.
