Goodbye, Nana.

My Nana — my maternal grandmother and my last remaining grandparent — died late Tuesday night. She would have turned 84 on August 12th of this year.

My Nana is the reason I finally learned to knit. My mother simply didn’t have the patience to teach me, although she tried; I tried several times to pick it up on my own and just hadn’t succeeded, until one day while I was pregnant with Sophie, I asked Nana would she show me? So she sat down, and in five minutes, had taught me everything I most needed to know about knitting — and, arguably, about life — “The stitches are all the same stitch — it just depends on how you look at them and where you put them on your needles.”

Nana was a gardener, first and foremost, and many of my memories of her are tied up in that.

I have always loved and admired Katharine Hepburn, and this image made me start a bit when I was sorting through photographs looking for some to post here — because clearly my Nana is the real-world model for my admiration of Ms. Hepburn. (And I mean beyond just the trousers and tall figure. Nana was very like K.H. in personality, as well, except that Nana got married and stayed that way.)

All the gardens you see behind her among the oak trees were planted entirely by her, over years and years of daily work on the property. She was out there nearly every day the weather allowed.

I love the colors in this image — if I ever try my hand at the dyepot, I may have to attempt a Nana-in-the-Garden colorway.

Nana had a life that could easily be termed tragic, but somehow she never came across as a victim. She lost one of her sisters early in her adult life under horrible circumstances, and then she lost her husband and all three of her children within five years. I can’t think of anyone who could handle all of those things, but somehow she did. It aged her terribly, but she was still Nana, still living her life, muddling through as best she could. I believe she’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known.

There was quite a bit of turmoil in my family after my mother died in 2002, culminating in the loss of Nana’s house in Delaware, nearly all the contents of that house, and Nana’s relocation to live near my cousins in Indiana. I haven’t seen her since that time, although I had plans to travel to Indiana in mid-August for her birthday to see her then. Alas, it was not to be. A couple of weeks ago, she took a fall that broke her pelvis; she later contracted septic infection and died on Tuesday night, June 24th.

While to a certain extent having her so far from me in distance was almost like losing her every day for the last years, the reality of it is that I always knew she was *there*. Now that she is truly gone, my heart aches for loss of her.  Isn’t the way the mind works foolish sometimes?

Swift Journey, Nana. I love you. May Heaven have gardening and unlimited chocolate supplies — and tell Mama how much I love and miss her.

If you’re interested, there are some more pictures-of-pictures over on Flickr.