My Nonney
I'm 32; a lot of people my age don't have grandparents alive. I still have my grandmother Barbara. But Nonney isn't my grandmother - she's my great-grandmother.
She was a working woman in an era of stay-at-home moms. After she quit the Endicott Johnson shoe factory, she was a babysitter. I don't think she'd like the term nanny; it seems too pretentious, and she's as far from that as you can get. Whenever people with lots of money went out of town and couldn't take their kids, she'd camp out at their house until they got back. She had enough clients to keep her busy into her 80s, and the only reason she retired was because she couldn't see well enough to drive.
I don't know what the clients' kids called her, but we always called her Nonney. That started when my dad and Aunt Nikki were kids; both their grandmothers shared the first name Dorothy, and they had to come up with a way to tell who was who. I don't think I knew Nonney's real first name until well after I was in school.
By the time my generation came along, Nonney had plenty of experience with youthful hijinks. We tried her patience regularly when she babysat for us. I know I asked the most questions that couldn't be answered; "why" is still one of my favorite words. We were a handful for even the most experienced child care professional and we probably would have been taken out of preschool in straitjackets had we been allowed to attend. My cousin Geri and I were six months apart; our brothers, George and Jason, were seven months apart and three years younger than us. Each one of us is uniquely stubborn. We were no match for Nonney, though; she was clearly the boss.
Despite her natural authority, she wasn't overbearing. I don't believe there's ever been a more loving person on the planet than Nonney. You never had to ask twice for a hug when she was around. When we got to be teenagers and started to shun family members' public displays of affection, she still got anything she wanted. Nonney didn't know the "no PDA" rule and would have openly disregarded it if you had tried to enforce it.
As sweet as she was, Nonney didn't let anyone push her around. She also had a habit of doing the unexpected. She announced that she was leaving her alcoholic husband by not showing up to their 25th-anniversary party. I probably got my independent streak from her .
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