My grandmother and I first became really acquainted after I joined the Navy in 1991. She found out that I wrote poetry often and began to send me poems that she had written over the years. I was ashamed to show her my poorly written words after reading her whimsical, deep, and often loving poems. Grandma had such a beautiful heart. But, it was then in those first letters that began our 13 years of friendship. It was a transition I suppose. My grandmother left behind her matron role and became to me the only person I could truly talk to in our family. From the young adult age of 19 until this past September, she was my strongest supporter. In a way I think she even turned my fathers attention toward me. She was also the model for which I passed all my loves through. If I couldn’t tell grandma about the man I was dating…well, maybe I shouldn’t be dating him. When I told her of my love life she repeated it back to me as if it were a fairy tale. I could feel her living vicariously through me. When one relationship would fail, and then another, she didn’t nag me or ask me hurtful questions. No, she encouraged me to focus on my own good heart and the promise that everything would return to me. She said she couldn’t wait to meet the man she knew would come along “some day”.  

My travels took me far across the Atlantic and it was through her letters that I was kept informed of the family, many of whom I had never met, or seldom saw. It was her dream to have us all together. It was a dream we shared. Every break I could take from the Navy I managed to stop in and sit with her at least a day and sometimes a few weeks. The talks we would share are so coveted in my heart. I sat through stories of everyone’s life and leafed through photo albums, asking questions, but more often just sitting there watching her rock in her arm chair listening to the history of each family member. I loved to hear the stories of that forgotten era gone by when she was a small girl in Maryland in the 1920’s. She loved her daddy so. I could see her holding his hand as she recounted the trips to the market and such with him. And then envision the darkness in her eyes when her mother died and her father remarried. All the years that had passed and she still longed for those times with her daddy.

 Grandma didn’t have a woman close by that she felt she could really talk with personally. Sure, she had great neighbors and friends but I felt as if she were telling me that she didn’t want to confide anything too personal with them. She would ask me questions that only women understood and I felt honored to be her confidant. And I felt sad that I could not remain by her side to answer her questions when needed. Grandma was the only human being to ever make me regret joining the Navy. Oh she was proud of my choice and never once criticized. It was in my own thoughts that the guilt grew. She needed me and I had to be in Italy, Yugoslavia, or some other territory that meant little to me in comparison to her company. Just as many of us had to, we worked while she sat alone after Grandpa died. Those are the days I would take back and make right if it were a perfect world and “money grew on trees” as she would say. 

 Grandma told me she was growing weak and losing her breath little by little. The doctor she adored had diagnosed her condition as a blockage in her heart. I came home straight away from England. I knew I had to make the choice between seeing her alive, talking with her, giving her that last hug or carrying her coffin to the beautiful hilltop plot that the family shares. As much as I would have loved to honor her in that final way, it was the living days I knew that she needed and that I would need when it had come to pass. So few were those last days of my visit. How can you stay long enough? I couldn’t have. I’ll always regret never staying “long enough” in all of my visits. Imagine if I could go back thirteen years into the past and sit with her… I’d say something silly like, “Grandma, I have to be here until you toss me out because when you leave us, the pain will be too much to take”. And, it is. Oh had I done that she would have truly tossed me out.  

 I did finally bring home the man that she promised would come to me. She loved him instantly. She said “he was so easy to talk to, I felt like I knew him my whole life". He was the only man I ever took to meet her. This was the last time that I saw her. Four months later she passed away.

 I could be here all night telling you stories. I’d tell you about her cakes, cookies, potato candy,  her favorite ice cream, the time I made her dinner (forgetting she had dentures), the thrill she often got when my cousin Joni called her, the happiness she expressed when talking about meeting my sister Tonya for the first time. I would keep you here for much longer than you planned to invest. Just a little longer to keep her with me. Because it’s just never long enough, ya know.

 So, go on, flip through the rest of my website. But when you do, take this with you…

I am a part of my Grandmothers goodness. She was the woman who did give me that hug when I needed one. And, she influenced everything you see within this site, and in me. Take care everyone.

 Shannon Kendall