My grandmother is 80 today.
I can hardly believe it, honestly.
As the oldest cousin on both sides of my family, the preceding adults to me have always been on the young end. My parents were young and these grandparents were uniquely youthful by comparison to most of my friends growing up.
My grandmother and my mom were my primary female examples and I couldn’t present you with two more contrasting personalities. This lady is a lot middle child, a lot happy with her current environment, rock-steady-the-same always. She’s the one who told me I can wear whatever the hell I want to and screw those people with their stupid opinions. Her own childhood stories were rife with getting dirty, telling people off and throwing punches if (when) she had to. She’ll proudly tell you she stole my grandpa from her best friend, and no, she doesn’t feel bad about it. She hates dresses. She hates her girly ass first name, Elizabeth, and even scoffed at me when I middle-named my daughter with it. “Ew, use Jean,” she said.
Jean was as rotten as they come and still is.
Our family is quick to tell you how inspirational my granddad is, because he is. He gets a lot of natural credit for his grace and perseverance, but this was a partnership made possible by both of these people. Never one to hold back an opinion, you’ll never see someone more supportive of her husband and their descendants. Dare ya to disagree with her. (Seriously, good luck.)
I am 600 miles and a subtype of dementia away from Jean now, but she lives in me seamlessly. My memory bank is filled to the top with school shopping trips, products she bought for me on auto-ship from QVC and standing in line at the Ritz Camera to develop all her rolls of film. The air she walked around Chico’s with as she introduced me to her style experts and paid her credit card bill, and the 4-hour perm she got for me in my waist-long hair. That time she nursed my flu when we got all the way to Orlando and I had to miss the day at Epcot Center. Her favorite ticket machine at Magic Mountain on Brice Road, which she pumped with hundreds of dollars to help us win the biggest prize (probably worth an 8th of the price we pissed away playing games there). Driving over to check on “Nana” (her mother), her obsession with Starbucks, eating at the Wendy’s at Eastland Mall. Allll the grandma’s house activities: K’nex roller coasters as big as the living room, 500 piece puzzles assembled while watching MTV, that spin paint thing she bought us from Michael’s, which we hovered over in the tiny kitchen she had no interest in bumping out and making any bigger.
It’s funny when you move so far away from home and start your family. You start to forget what it was like before these people you fell in love with and made came along. Time starts passing much faster on the ones you spent every day of your life with in certain seasons. People like your young grandmother who is at least 1/5th of the reason you are who you are today.
80 is quite an age. I don’t know how reflective her mind is today, but for her I will dedicate this day to the 35 years of her life I have the ability to memorialize. I was Mama’s first little girl in so many ways, a box I am honored to have lived in. The part of me that is able to give the finger to people’s ridiculous expectations will always belong to her.
All my love and Happy 80th Birthday wishes to my feisty “Mama” – Elizabeth Jean Hurt. +