Nanny is Ninety!

"Nanny" is my friend, Margaret who has rheumatoid arthritis. I have visited her almost weekly for over a year.

I’m so glad that tonight’s tribute is not a eulogy! As most of you know, just a week and a half ago, we all thought Nanny would be eating hospital Jello for a while. But tonight? Let her eat cake!

One day I was at Nanny’s and we discovered a bag of clothes that Donna had brought downstairs for her to try on. We looked at each of the items and Nanny said, “Well. What do you think?” Donna had chosen well. They all had essence of Nanny. Intricate detail, optimistic colors, delightful designs. All but one. It was drab. It was beige. It was flaccid. It was ugly! As Nanny held it up in front of her, I chose the most tactful words available. “Not that one, Nanny. It makes you look like an old lady!” “I AM an old lady!” she said.

That was the first time I realized that chronologically, she IS. But Nanny belongs to that rare group of people who have aged so gracefully you don’t even realize that it’s happened. When she was forty, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. She was told that by age 50 she’d be in a wheelchair. Did anybody see her roll up in one tonight?

If you know anything about chronic pain, you know that it can make a person snarly. As her pedicurist, I have heard her sigh or have involuntary gasps of pain but I have never seen that pain translated into rudeness or meanness. God in his infinite wisdom does peculiar things. He gives pleasant people great challenges.

When I first started going to Nanny’s I noticed things that seemed contradictory. Here was this sharp little woman who still does her own stock trading but she can’t remember to tighten the lid on the toothpaste? Who left the lid loose on the mayonnaise? And the toilet lid is ALWAYS up! I went around the apartment and tidied things up. It wasn’t until I saw her button up a sweater one day that I realized that the Loose Lids was her Plan B. Instead of making herself frustrated by fighting reality and the challenges of arthritis, she adjusted. That’s grace.

People who age gracefully have aplomb. “Is the glass half empty or half full?” “Who cares?” they say. “What a tasty drink!” People like this meet the day with humor and optimism. They are a delight. They are the persistent little flowers you might find in unlikely places. Growing up from a crack in the concrete or blooming sooner than springtime.

It is now a tradition that when I visit Nanny, I make her an apple salad. Apples, walnuts, raisins, a second fruit if she has it, and a bit of mayonnaise. It’s just an apple salad. But people who age gracefully notice that the apples are cut into bits small enough to share the spoon with the walnuts and raisins. They delight. They appreciate the value of ordinary things and find beauty in small details. They make mere apple cutters feel like they are chefs.

Nanny, I am one of a great number of people who thinks you are Cool Beans. And that in elevated culinary diction is Chilled Legumes!