Anastasia
Not to be confused with Sia, my other Anastasia, who has been gone — gulp — is it 10 years this summer?!
No wonder her death hit me so hard. As she and my great-grandmother shared a name.
And those two ladies were just pure magic.
I don’t write much about Anna Banana. I called her Old Gram. As, in my childhood wisdom, I had a “Gram” and it was only natural that her mom should be “Old Gram.”
I got to thinking about Old Gram, the original OG, today.
Fell into a social media rabbit hole about the Catholic Church and I mentioned how she was excommunicated for leaving an abusive husband.
Immediately, some dude told me I’m an idiot and wrong because the church doesn’t excommunicate you for that.
I said, “By all means, please continue to mansplain my family to me.”
On the other side of the spectrum, a nice woman said oh that poor woman. How awful that had to have been for her.
I said you’re not kidding. She had three small children and made 10 cents an hour cleaning some doctor’s house in Squirrel Hill.
Mom had told me the doctor was cheap, too. And it was a damn mansion right near where Fred Rogers is buried.
In any event, it made me happy that someone would be so kind as to say warm, loving words about Old Gram.
I also told her, “What a badass she had to be, huh?”
I was thinking about the gall of that guy who basically called me a liar. I’m bored with idiots who have keyboards that are as dusty as their crotches.
And I decided to think about Old Gram instead.
I remember cooking with her. Simple things, as I was young. I just about killed her because I made her a hot dog and then a grilled cheese in the hot dog pan. Learned to wash every damn thing between uses with that episode.
I remember playing with Cabbage Patch dolls with her. And her listening to me sing at my Commodore 64K computer. And sitting on the porch with her at the projects.
I got to thinking, too, about how accepting my family was of Mom having me at 16.
My grandparents were 30 when they had her. But Old Gram would have had Gram at 19. I’m not sure of Uncle Joe’s or Vince’s ages, but my guess is Gram was the oldest. She always had that Lucy Van Pelt energy.
I can’t find Uncle Joe’s obituary to confirm he was younger. But I think I found Joe Sr.’s. If so, he passed in 1961. Interestingly, Joe Sr. and his granddaughter Dana died at age 55. So, Mom wasn’t the youngest when she passed.
Sorry, I get so off track when I’m trying not to do work.
I remember Old Gram whipping up Mom’s and my ice cream so it would be more like custard than whatever hard Breyer’s came out of the cardboard carton.
I remember her arthritic hands. Once pretty, from the rare photo of her from the 1940s that I saw. But one hand was permanently in a fist but as if her nails were too long to close into a proper fist.
“Her poor little hands,” I remember Mom saying. How she cleaned that stupid doctor’s house till she collapsed, six days a week, and for what?
Mom always told me not to let men steal my pretty. That must have been where the idea came from.
I wish I had more memories of Old Gram. I do remember those final years of her having a hospital bed in the dining room. And her passing in Jefferson Hospital. And how I was at peak asshole when it happened, just like I was when Mom was going.
Mom always said her people passed when she finally told the universe she’d had enough of all the pain and stress. She was careful to never say it about herself.
Oh! I remember Old Gram waving at me from her hospital bed with one finger from her little crooked hands. When it was time for visiting hours to be over.
She was so cute. So freaking cute. What a twinkle in her green eyes. Green eyes that Mom and I inherited.
Oh wow, I hadn’t thought of all this since I was 12. When she passed.
That little finger wave.
Goodness, I am so grateful for this surprise memory.
Man, it’s 40 years gone by and it makes me cry even now. How those little hands must have hurt but she was tired from the blood transfusions and could only wave and not talk.
Love you so much, Anna Banana. I hope you got to meet sweet Sia at some point. I’ll always love your shared name because of all the love you both shared with me.