Peez

Pronounced Peas.

As I've mentioned, Peez is my great-grandmother.  The one responsible for the Polish in our family.

March 2008.  Notre Dame sweatshirt.  We have problems.

She's 96 years old.  Peez played the role of Mom when actual Mom was at work.  And she spoiled me rotten.  As any great-grandmother should.  Her house was my other "home" as I went to school though 5th grade in town here.

Some of her gems are:

"Dara's too young to be wearing deodorant!"

"Gram, she stinks."

(while looking at old pictures)  "Boy, I was quite the looker!  So attractive!"

"Modest, too, Mom."

Mom and I started a blog years ago with the intent to publish a book.  Peez would always put notes in my lunch as a kid and wrote short poems in birthday and holiday she gave to me and Mom.  Once we moved to the city, she would send them almost every week, then once a month at Mom's insistence (she would send me an "allowance" that I hadn't exactly always deserved/earned).  Always with a poem.  When I was in college, I got a weekly poem and cash.  Every holiday I could always count on a poem.  Birthdays, especially.

But she's 96.  Classic old person, her hearing is shot and glaucoma and cataracts have wreaked havoc.  If I don't call her when Wheel of Fortune is on, she won't hear me as only the sexy Pat Sajak gets the honor of her putting in her hearing aids.  She's been falling a lot (luckily she hasn't injured herself).  She's too stubborn to let my grandfather teach her how to use the walker she recently got correctly (he lives with her and cares for her).

Her best friend still calls her Hot Lips.  And she still calls her best friend Tits Galore.

Her body is winding down, but her mind is still there.  She will still call me her Dear Little One and Little Shit in the same breath.

It's very hard for me to think about her now, presently, compared to back in days of yore when she would carry me around her house on her shoulders, singing "I love you a bushel and a peck" while we look at ourselves in the weird amount of mirrors she has in her house to this day.

Save for my step-father's passing (which I have yet to fully deal with over a year later), I have no idea how I will cope/handle when she has to leave.  I have been very grateful/lucky that I have yet to experience that in my life.  But it still sucks and I'm not looking forward to that day.  I'm not sure what I'll do and how I'll function.  It was hard enough moving away to Michigan, four hours away.

Holy crap, this was a longer post than I intended.  My bad!  On to more fun topics!