Nonny
My nonny died at around 9 AM this morning.
Now, I want to get out of the way right now the statement that I am very much okay with this. It was a long time coming, and she wasn't having a ball toward the end. She's been on the edge for about a year now, and it was time. She'd suffered enough indignity. Anyone incapacitated in the way she was would have, but it's especially humbling for a woman like her, such a grand lady and not because of what a husband or children or society made her, but what she made of herself. As many of you know, I was raised in a family full of strong, formidable women, and Lisa Friedman -- Nonny -- certainly set the standard.
As a young woman, little more than a teenager, Lisa hitched a ride with some handsome young guy on her way to D.C. for some poltical event or another, leaned back in the seat and asked him, "So, just how fast can this buggy go?" he promptly switched gears and showed her. A few years later, she became a nurse and during that time met and fell in love with a younger man, Bill Friedman, my poppy. And all this in the forties. She got her degree in psychology and pioneered several experimental therapeutic techniques in the sixties and seventies. She also made a second career of flauting conventions and propriety, a trait that has trickled down to yours truly. She hooked up one of her patients with one of her daughters, and thank God she did or I wouldn't have been born.
As times changed, she failed to be cowed by those changes. When I came out to my grandparents, she said, "Mikey, you know we love you, and we always will, no matter who you are... but do you think there's any chance you might be bisexual?" And now, looking back, it was probably as much because she wanted me not to miss out on any options as it was a plea for great-grandchildren. Seriously. If that kind of exchange doesn't explain half of why I am the way I am, nothing will.
My sister Nikki was in the room with her when she died. I think she was even holding her hand. I was told that Poppy was called in, kissed her and said, "Goodbye, Darling." He's one of the most crotchety old men in the world. I love him dearly, but he is. It says a lot about him. The love of his life, the older woman who taught him what a woman really was -- fierce, independent, challenging -- gave him a fuller, richer life than any docile wifey could have done. Who wouldn't be affected that profoundly by losing that? This is my family, this is my legacy... bombastic, edge-skating, innovative, feminist world-changers. It's a good legacy to have. She had a long life, a good life. She would have been eighty-nine in May, and in that time, she had three children, twelve grand-children, even a few great grandchildren. She had two careers, three if you count parenting. She traveled the world. It's not a death to be mourned, just and absence to get used to.
Then again, I've been getting used to it for the last year. I grieved a while back, and I'm really okay. The only hard part now is speaking at the funeral, because that's something I've never done. At only twenty-six, I've lost a lot of people, but this is the first time, I'll be doing this. And I can't not. Because she deserves the right words, and I may be an arrogant asshole saying this, but considering the rest of my family, I'm the man for that job. But right now, I sort of wish I wasn't.
It's times like this my faith helps, not because it dopes my pain, but because it helps me to understand and see meaning and makes sense of a world that so rarely does. I'm thankful for her life. It's certainly an example to be inspired by. And I am, because I'm in many ways more like her than anyone else in my family.
I'm strange and wild and inappropriate and challenging and brave and strong and compassionate and everything else she wanted me to be. So, don't worry about everyone down here, Nons. I'll be kicking their asses and waking them up for you. I love you.
- Mikey
Now, I want to get out of the way right now the statement that I am very much okay with this. It was a long time coming, and she wasn't having a ball toward the end. She's been on the edge for about a year now, and it was time. She'd suffered enough indignity. Anyone incapacitated in the way she was would have, but it's especially humbling for a woman like her, such a grand lady and not because of what a husband or children or society made her, but what she made of herself. As many of you know, I was raised in a family full of strong, formidable women, and Lisa Friedman -- Nonny -- certainly set the standard.
As a young woman, little more than a teenager, Lisa hitched a ride with some handsome young guy on her way to D.C. for some poltical event or another, leaned back in the seat and asked him, "So, just how fast can this buggy go?" he promptly switched gears and showed her. A few years later, she became a nurse and during that time met and fell in love with a younger man, Bill Friedman, my poppy. And all this in the forties. She got her degree in psychology and pioneered several experimental therapeutic techniques in the sixties and seventies. She also made a second career of flauting conventions and propriety, a trait that has trickled down to yours truly. She hooked up one of her patients with one of her daughters, and thank God she did or I wouldn't have been born.
As times changed, she failed to be cowed by those changes. When I came out to my grandparents, she said, "Mikey, you know we love you, and we always will, no matter who you are... but do you think there's any chance you might be bisexual?" And now, looking back, it was probably as much because she wanted me not to miss out on any options as it was a plea for great-grandchildren. Seriously. If that kind of exchange doesn't explain half of why I am the way I am, nothing will.
My sister Nikki was in the room with her when she died. I think she was even holding her hand. I was told that Poppy was called in, kissed her and said, "Goodbye, Darling." He's one of the most crotchety old men in the world. I love him dearly, but he is. It says a lot about him. The love of his life, the older woman who taught him what a woman really was -- fierce, independent, challenging -- gave him a fuller, richer life than any docile wifey could have done. Who wouldn't be affected that profoundly by losing that? This is my family, this is my legacy... bombastic, edge-skating, innovative, feminist world-changers. It's a good legacy to have. She had a long life, a good life. She would have been eighty-nine in May, and in that time, she had three children, twelve grand-children, even a few great grandchildren. She had two careers, three if you count parenting. She traveled the world. It's not a death to be mourned, just and absence to get used to.
Then again, I've been getting used to it for the last year. I grieved a while back, and I'm really okay. The only hard part now is speaking at the funeral, because that's something I've never done. At only twenty-six, I've lost a lot of people, but this is the first time, I'll be doing this. And I can't not. Because she deserves the right words, and I may be an arrogant asshole saying this, but considering the rest of my family, I'm the man for that job. But right now, I sort of wish I wasn't.
It's times like this my faith helps, not because it dopes my pain, but because it helps me to understand and see meaning and makes sense of a world that so rarely does. I'm thankful for her life. It's certainly an example to be inspired by. And I am, because I'm in many ways more like her than anyone else in my family.
I'm strange and wild and inappropriate and challenging and brave and strong and compassionate and everything else she wanted me to be. So, don't worry about everyone down here, Nons. I'll be kicking their asses and waking them up for you. I love you.
- Mikey