I just got off of the telephone with my Grammie. Every time I speak to her, I remember 30 (or so) years that I have had so far with her. She is the bravest woman I know.
My grandmother, Blanche Veronica McCarthy Senna, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. We know that it has spread to the lymph nodes and we will have more information soon. She helped to raise me into the woman I am in this moment, and I am very reflective in this time of quiet crisis in our family. She is the matriarch, and I simply cannot imagine life without her. I am choosing to remember my life with her, and to believe that our time together is not yet up. This is the story of my Grammie and me. My brother, Erik, also plays a large role in my life with Grams, as have all of my friends, and sometimes even their families.
One of my first memories of my grandmother is really more about my grandfather, or as we called him, Grampie. He had broken his ankle, as I recall, and he had a long cast covering his leg. I was perhaps three years old at the time, and I wanted to know where the cast was going, and what it was doing on his leg. I was standing with him, and I was trying to reach up his pant leg to feel the cast. My Grampie had no idea what to do, and started yelling for my Grammie to tell me to stop. He called her by the only name he ever called her by: Tuck. “Tuck, Tuck!” he yelled. I remember my Grammie coming into the room and laughing hysterically as my grandfather tried to shake me off without falling over.
She has always laughed, and made us laugh. She has always made me feel undeniably, inexplicably loved beyond measure. Last night, I was trying to think of a time when she raised her voice to me, and I came up with none. She was only stern when it was absolutely necessary, and she always reminded me that she loved me no matter what.
I have spent a lot of time with my Grammie in my life. As a child, I spent every Saturday at my grandparents’ house, and I grew up living two streets away from them, in my Grandfather’s childhood home. If I were to try and tell you the entire story, I would be writing for as long as I have been alive. I want you to understand how lovely she is, so I will tell you about the moments I remember.
I remember more Peppermint Patties and pickle and pimento loaf than you can imagine. I remember sitting on her lap in the living room recliner as she sang to me: Life is just a bowl of cherries/Don’t take it serious/It’s too mysterious/You work, you play, you worry so, but you can’t take your dough when you go go go. The playground down the street from her house is where she would walk me down to ride the swing set. The drugstore down the street was where we would walk to, and where I would inevitably walk home with a treat of some kind. She would let me stay up until 11:00pm with her when I would sleep over, and we would watch the Merv Griffin show. She would tuck me into a little flip-out bed, or on an old Navy cot that she had, and I would fall asleep dreaming of the breakfast she would make me in the morning.
She and my Grampie would take my brother and I out to dinner every Christmas Eve so that our parents could smuggle the presents from her closets to their bedroom, so that they would be under the tree in the morning. They bought us the best presents.
She played cards with me for hours.
She so patiently taught me the game of checkers, even though I didn’t understand the rules. “If this one is here, can I move this one like this?” I would ask. “No, honey,” she would say, and try to explain it all again to me.
She attended every single choir concert that I was a part of, from elementary school through high school, and she always told me how wonderful I was.
She told me that she and Grampie wanted to meet every boy that I dated, and so they did. When they were out of earshot, Grammie would give me her opinion. She was always right in the end.
She has supported me in everything that I have done in this life, even when she was unsure about whatever it was. Unwavering support is not easily come by.
The things I didn’t know about my Grammie until I was older is that she took care of everyone else around her, too. She nursed her own mother, father, mother and father in-law, husband, sister and niece until their deaths.
She has seen many people go before her, and she is afraid now. I am afraid for her. I am childishly afraid for me, too.
But more than afraid, I am present. I am trying with everything that I have, with everything that I have learned from my yoga practice, to not only be in the moment with the truth that she has been diagnosed with this disease, but to actually try to enjoy being in this process with her. I am grateful that I am here, and available to be with her as she moves forward into and through treatment. I have told the Universe in no uncertain terms that I see my Grammie coming through this battle, healthy and learned.
I am telling this story of this beautiful woman because I want you to understand how much she has given back to this world. I hope that through my words, you can imagine the love that she has given out. And if you can imagine this: she has never asked for anything in return. She still pays me $10 to mow her lawn. I protest, and she always says the same thing: “No, no. We all could use the money.” I have it in an envelope with her name on it. It is now going toward her Reiki treatments.
On October 19th at 5:30pm, I am teaching an all levels, 90 minute class of Sun Salutations in her honor, with a suggested donation of $20. All donations will go toward alternative treatments and a cure for her. It's being held at Sacred Rivers Yoga on 2934 Main Street in Glastonbury, CT. The website is http://www.sacredriversyoga.com.
Please, if you are able to donate, do. Come to class. Join us in Sun Salutations, or simply come to be in the energy of (*hopefully*) a packed room of people as we seek peace through movement in honor of this woman. She is worth the world. If I could give it to her, if I could summon the powers of Sun, Earth and Moon, I would. I’m trying. It’s the least I can do.
Love,
~Temple
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May 2009 
Temple
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