She has always been Nana

To my Nana,

When I met you, I was sixteen and you were 17. We were young and foolish, I more than you. My arrogance was mixed with blissful ignorance and the desire to maintain. However, you weren't arrogant, and whatever you didn't know, you sought to fill that gap of knowledge and remain to this day unsettled by the idea that you could be doing more, but aren't. The first time we talked, you told me to call you Nikki, and for about a year I think I did, then the nickname came, Nana. Over thirty years later, and all the bumps, trials, mistakes, pain, doubts, and twists life has thrown at us and you are not only Nana to me but now to your grandsons. Most grandmothers don't get the distinction of the title Nana till their grandchildren are born, but you got it as a gift from your baby sister, 16 years younger than you, who mispronounced Nikki. Nana, she called you, and ever since it has stuck in my mind and heart.

We both went through neglectful and miserable childhoods, rife with sickness, disappointment, and pain. I had my childhood cancer and multiple operations, you the physical and emotional abuse of your father and grandmother after. I had childhood cancer that nearly killed me and left me scarred and limping, you the emotional trauma and wounds in your heart and mind and the stopped heart at age 5. Our respective mothers oblivious and neglectful would choose sex and personal gratification over the role of caregiver and mother. Where my trauma and experience imbittered me and made me distant and cold, yours caused a change in your view of the world. The kindness we all start with was multiplied and increased in you. The joy and pleasure we all have in the small things that give us childhoods and early lives where we are easily pleased and full of wonder didn't diminish in you because of what was done to you or because of the passing of time but instead became a permanent fixture of your view of the world and your awesome personality.

See I didn't know it when you and I, started dating, fell in love, and got married at the age of 19 and 18 respectively, but you would become then and even now one of the most rocksteady and inspirational figures in my life. You were patient with me while I worked out my traumas, you were supportive of me as I found my path and way, and even now you continue to be an emotional rock as I struggle with issues. I thought about who I should thank for who I am, who I have become, who helped me leave baggage and issues behind, and unlike many, I couldn't look to my parents. I thought of teachers but I never let them in, nor did any of their influences ever really take hold. My grandparents did the best they could with their own damaged lives and hearts but only a work ethic was the deposit that my grandfather gave, and my grandmother gave me the belief in family and connection. However, as important as those facets of who I am are, they did not help me deal with my anger, my fears, my poor decisions. No, all of that came on my journey with you and the example you set. I watched you push your way through health issues with a smile and light heart, I walked with you as we faced the same disappointments but the way you processed and handled them was so different, that it, that you challenged me to be better just by the virtue of who you are. That you could hold your head up, and bear the weight that seemed to crush and cripple me, taught me I was doing something wrong. That your continued approach to life had such drastically altered results on you than my own had on me, made me question my thought process and the point of view I had on our lives and even our world that we were creating in our own little family.

Eventually, I came to not only know you as a girlfriend, my fiancé, my wife, my lover, and my confidant, but I also saw you become a mother. Our journey into parenthood 25 years ago was not something I think I could have ever done or prepared myself for, but you stepped into the role like you were born for it, and not only did you adapt and modify yourself for it, but did so around your college courses and the job you were working. Not only that you still were a daughter, granddaughter, and sister to your little sister. The way you even approached your relationship with your mother, forgiving her, deciding to love her and be there with her and for her, it was a direct challenge to my feelings on that subject, the way you forgave your father and let go of his wrongs against you and your mother and grandparents, the concern and love and support you always exhibited for your grandmother in spite of the painful physical and emotional relationship she had with you made me rethink my approach to the relationships in my own life. While I struggled with the comprehension that I was going to be a father, you led me by example and continued to prepare your life and ours for our new roles as parents so together we could be who we didn't have. I think it was then, still calling you Nana, that I understood how wrong I had been, that my approach was so skewed that if I didn't change, I would destroy our children's chances at a family that gave them the love, safety, and support we didn't have. A better man would be able to say that he started making changes then and there and that by the time their 2nd and 3rd children were born 2 and 4 years later, he had become more of the man he needed to be, the father that the children needed and the husband his wife deserved. But, if I am to be truthful, I can't say that about me. Where you shined and quickly became a wonderful mother, I faltered as a father. When you stepped up and continued to improve, I was stagnant and afraid to change even though I knew I had to. The woman I loved, my wife, my Nana, had adapted and was everything I needed and that our three children needed however, I was lagging behind and failing them and you badly. Any good I did was incidental or accidental. The mistakes I made and poor choices far outweighed and exceeded the good I did and the things I got right.

It wasn't until our 3rd, our son was 5, and our daughters 7 and 9 that things came to a head, and our differences became so dramatically opposed that I had to change or destroy our marriage. In spite of that, you held on to it and to me, and where I was weak and pathetic you stepped up and did what I didn't or couldn't. My Nana cried for me, my Nana sacrificed for me, and my Nana became the leader of our home when I failed it.

I want you to know I see you; I have and I do now, thinking on our relationship and years of marriage, our growth independently and together. The changes that came into me and my views started then and came quickly, so much lost ground to make up. Your strength, your choice to be my Nana gave me the opportunity to learn things anew and do for my wife and children the things that were never done for me. The time I was alone in the hospital after one of my many surgeries and my father, high, said he would not be able to stay because of a date, now was shone to me in a different light. I began to pity my father instead of hating him. The perpetual lying drunk that was my mother and who stole over $100k from my grandmother after my grandfather died, was now in my eyes a victim and unaware of it, so I forgave her for all she did and didn't do for me and my brother. The wounds in my life, the scars on my body became the same types of victories that you had. Your abusive grandmother saved you from your abusive father, was seen in your eyes as a victory because at least she had some good days and did try to teach you things. The weakness of your mother forgiven by you is an example to me to learn to forgive others in my life. My Nana stood as a shining example of strength then and she does now. The challenges have changed but the choices haven't. Your example of continuing to choose me and our family and to love me is and has always will be a point of joy of pride for me as your partner, husband, and friend. No matter who has left, abandoned, or forsaken me, you have stood by a steady rock and leader in our lives and family. Now we partner our family together, sharing the burdens and choices, but it was your example that got us, got me to the point where I could do that, where I could realize that it was the only way to that in spite of what I learned growing up, the early examples I had seen, that it was my Nana who was right and not my own preconceived notions and thoughts, that what I thought I was supposed to be and do, was tainted by the life I had been given to lead.

This was a letter to be written to my hero, and that is you. Thank you, Nana, for being who you are, for making the choices you have made, and for walking that narrow path before I understood where it was and what it meant. Thank you for loving me and putting up with me and having the strength to stick it out. Thank you for being patient while I learned and let go of my own arrogance and accepted that I was ignorant of how to do it. I can't even imagine who I would be or where without you, all those years ago that day in McDonald's when you saw me, I am so grateful you didn't have your glasses because it let you see a blurry vision of who I might be, who I might become. If there is any good, I have become or done anything that is good, I know without you, I couldn't have done it.

I love you now and forever,

Ben Sr.