She also wanted to "smoke some of the marijuana."

I only have one grandparent still living, and her name is Nana. Yes, Nana. If you’ve just met her, she will tell you to call her Nana. If you call her anything resembling a formal name she will tell you to, “Shut the hell up!”

My love for Nana is a strange and strong thing. It is part admiration, part incredulousness, but mostly just pure love. She was the fun grandparent; taking me to IHOP with my best friend and letting us build castles out of the creamers, then throw jelly packets at them. She had this giant white afro (yes, she’s of the Caucasian persuasion) that she kept perfectly round. My sister and I loved to pretend we were dribbling it like a basketball. As a kid I thought she was lots of fun, and her “lots of fun-ness” grew older with me.

When her husband, Papa, died, I met a whole new Nana. That woman was crazy! At age 69 she got her 1st tattoo because, “That old grump never would let me get a tattoo!” I sat in the shop while she & my sister got matching butterflies. The whole time she kept taunting me about the fact that I was too young to get one with them.

When I was 16 she started regularly giving me gift cards to Victoria’s Secret so I could buy sexy underwear, and confided in me that she wanted to try “that thong underwear.” Later she whispered that she also wanted to “smoke some of the marijuana.” And, boy-oh-boy, it never stops. Just the other day she asked me if I could get some for her next visit.

Nana spends her afternoons drinking margaritas and playing cards with her buddies at the old-folks trailer park. That, or drinking white wine that her friend Peggy brings over in a jug, over ice, of course. She tells me that “all those penis pills have ruined old age” because now she can’t just have a male friend; “they all still just want sex!” She has determined that she had plenty of sex when she was married to Papa, and doesn’t see why she should have to put up with it anymore. Lord knows why she feels the need to share all this with me!

God bless her 77 year old soul! She an amazing woman with so much fire in her belly, and aches in her bones to complain about that I swear; she’ll outlive us all! More to come . . .