Remembering the Moomster!

A year ago today Will and I watched Obama get inaugurated.  We watched Aretha Franklin make 'My Country Tis of Thee' sound dirty (and we laughed - all right I did).  Me thinks she had the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABLE.


I found it pretty cool that the world seemed to be changing just in time for Will to get in on the action.  That night, my grandmother died.  Which I should have saw coming.  Moo Moo was 103 and slightly racist (don't boo her, she was a product of her times) so seeing a black guy become President was likely more than she could bear, so she just gave up.

Bit of background for you not in the Moo Moo know.  She was my mom's mom and I had the spent the past nine years since my mom died 'looking after her'.  She was in a home but her other care came from me with some help from my family.  It was challenging and rewarding.  Things I don't miss - cutting her toenails, explaining to people at the drugstores that the adult diapers were not for me and watching her deal with the dementia that slowly took her life over.  Things I do miss - our convos when she was sane, some of our convos when she wasn't quite there and the few times she told me that she loved me.

By the time I decided to have Will, I'd say Moo Moo was about 80% gone and 20% in the here and now.  I asked her if I should have a baby and I swear she was channeling my mother because her response was the kindest thing I had ever heard her say to anyone.  You have to because you'd be the best mother.  And then she cried.  This was not my grandmother.

I explained the whole process to her and she seemed to get it.  Moo Moo had always been really inquisitive with me.  My favourite was when I told her my friend was getting a sex change.  Her response?  Well dear, will they save his penis for a woman who wants to become a man?  Good point - 99 years old and that is what she came up with. 

When I got pregnant and went to tell her, the response was classic Moo Moo.
Are you telling the truth?  Are you really?  Really?
YES
Can I tell Florence? (her sister....who had been dead for about 30 years)
SURE
(looking at the wall) Florence, Florence!!! Sara is pregnant...WITHOUT A MAN!!!

We laughed.  A lot.  But she totally got it - at 103 she totally got the insemination thing.  She told my uncle who called to say that Moo Moo had totally lost it because she said I was pregnant through artificial insemination....it was the sanest thing she had said in a year.

I won't lie, I was happy when Moo Moo passed away.  She didn't deserve to live the way she had been living over the past decade.  No one did.  I think she hung out as long as she did to meet Will so she could tell my Mom all about him.  I cherish those few times they had together.  And even though Will wasn't the girl she had hoped for...(Dear - don't paint that nursery blue yet...it could still be a boy. She didn't quite get the finding out in advance)..he brought her this strange peace when he was around.

Happy 'anniversary' of sorts Moomster...I'll never forget you - how could I - you left me these godforsaken Safford family thighs...