Between Coffee & Curfew

There are people you love, and then there are people who somehow become part of the foundation of who you are. My grandma was that person for me.

I spent a lot of my childhood with her. My parents weren’t always in a place where they were being the parents I needed them to be, so a lot of the time, I was with Grandma. Looking back now, I realize that what she gave me during those years was so much bigger than somewhere to be. She gave me consistency. She gave me safety. And she gave me a kind of love that never made me question whether I belonged.

She was my person long before I even understood what it meant to have one.

The Things I Didn’t Know I’d Miss So Much

Some of my favorite memories of her weren’t big ones. We watched The Golden Girls together all the time. Even now, that show will always have a little piece of her attached to it for me.

There was a song she loved called Teddy Bear, about a little boy talking to a truck driver over a CB radio. I can still remember listening to it with her. It’s funny how something as simple as a song can become a time machine. You hear it years later and suddenly you’re not an adult anymore. You’re right back there with someone you would give anything to sit beside one more time.

We played Super Nintendo together. And she would sit and play ridiculous girly board games like Girl Talk with me. The best part was that she didn’t make me feel like she was just doing those things because I was a kid and she had to entertain me. She actually enjoyed being with me. I could tell.

There’s something about realizing that as an adult that hits differently. She wasn’t simply watching me grow up. She was participating in my childhood, and she made it fun.

She Loved Us Through Food, Too

Grandma was an amazing cook. For years, she was the one making the holiday dinners. The food, the pies, the candy, all of it. Eventually, as she got older and her health changed, there were things she couldn’t do anymore.

But when I picture those holidays, I don’t only remember what was on the table. I remember her. Her house. Her chair. Her voice. The feeling of everybody being together. I didn’t know then how much I would miss the person behind all of those traditions.

I think that’s one of the cruel things about growing up. You don’t realize you’re living inside a memory while it’s happening. You think there will always be another Christmas, another pie, another afternoon sitting together.

Until there isn’t.

She Never Just Told Me What I Wanted To Hear

I could tell my grandma anything. And I mean anything. But unconditional love from her didn’t mean unconditional agreement. If I was wrong, she told me I was wrong.

She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, and she definitely wasn’t afraid to tell me something I didn’t want to hear. She could be stubborn. She could be hard when she needed to be. But she was also soft. She was fair. And even when she was telling you something you didn’t particularly enjoy hearing, you never had to wonder where it was coming from. It came from love.

That’s something she taught me that I don’t think I fully appreciated until I got older: loving someone doesn’t mean agreeing with everything they do. Sometimes loving someone means being the person willing to tell them the truth. She loved people enough to be honest with them.

She certainly loved me enough to be honest with me.

Okay, Fine. I Was the Favorite.

I know grandparents aren’t supposed to have favorites, and I’m sure Grandma would probably have something to say about me announcing this publicly. But…I was the favorite grandchild.

Fair or not. 😂 Everybody knew it. She tried not to make it obvious, but come on. We knew. And there’s a tiny part of me that will probably always be proud of that.

She had a special name for me, too. Annie Tif. Two little words that probably wouldn’t mean much to anybody else. They mean everything to me.

So much that I now have “Annie Tif” tattooed on my arm in her handwriting. She can’t say it to me anymore, but I can look down and see a piece of her that I get to carry with me.

Our Last Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2016 was our last holiday together. Of course, I didn’t know that then.

I remember sitting on the floor in front of her chair while she played with my hair. Such a small thing. There was nothing extraordinary happening. No big conversation that I knew I needed to memorize. No voice in my head warning me to pay attention because this would be one of the last times. I was just sitting on the floor, and my grandma was playing with my hair.

If I had known what was coming, maybe I would have stayed longer. Maybe I would have asked more questions. Maybe I would have tried harder to memorize exactly what her hand felt like running through my hair. But that’s not how life works.

We almost never know which ordinary moments are going to become the ones we’d give anything to have back. And now, nearly ten years later, that ordinary little moment is one of the memories I hold onto the tightest.

I Thought She Would Come Home Again

That December, she ended up in the hospital. It wasn’t the first time. She had been sick before. There had been scares before. And somehow, Grandma always seemed to pull through.

So even though I knew she wasn’t well, I don’t think I truly believed I was going to lose her. Not yet. Maybe part of me believed she would just always find a way back.

I left the hospital on Christmas Eve believing there would be another visit. Another conversation. Another chance to sit beside her.

About an hour after I left, I got the call. She was gone.

There are moments in life that create a very clear before and after. For me, that phone call was one of them. There was my life when Grandma was in it, and then there was everything that came after.

Christmas Eve Has Never Been Just Christmas Eve Again

People tell you grief gets easier with time. I don’t know if easier is the word I would use. You learn how to carry it.

Life starts moving again because it has to. Holidays keep coming. Children grow. Birthdays happen. Ordinary Tuesdays happen. You laugh again. You make new memories. You live. But there’s still this invisible space where that person should be.

And sometimes, even after all these years, something happens and I still have that instinct: I wish I could tell Grandma.

There are things I wish she could see. Things I wish I could ask her. Days when I would give almost anything to sit on the floor in front of her chair again and feel her playing with my hair. Not because I need some profound conversation. Just because I want my grandma.

She Is Still Part of Me

The older I get, the more I recognize pieces of the people who raised us living inside of us. Sometimes I hear myself say something and wonder if it sounds like her.

Sometimes I think about the way she could be soft and strong at the same time. The way she showed up. And now that I’m raising my own children, I understand even more what a gift that was.

Maybe that’s part of why writing has become so important to me. I know now that people don’t stay forever, even when some childish little part of us believes they will. And when they’re gone, we search for pieces of them- a photograph, a recipe, a song, a memory, a few words written in their handwriting.

Annie Tif.

So I’m writing things down. For myself. For my children. Maybe someday for their children. Because if there ever comes a time when the people I love are missing me, I want them to have pieces of me to find, too.

She Was My Person

I don’t know if Grandma ever fully understood what she was to me. I hope she did. I hope she knew that during the years when I needed somewhere safe to land, she was that place.

I hope she knew that all those evenings watching The Golden Girls, playing video games, making holiday dinners, playing silly board games and simply letting me sit near her weren’t little things to me. They became pieces of my childhood, pieces of who I am, and pieces of her that I still carry.

I thought I would have her forever. I didn’t. But I had her long enough to know what it feels like to be loved completely. And maybe that’s why losing her hurt enough to change me.

Because she wasn’t only my grandma. She was my safe place. She was part of my home. She was my person.

And she still is.

Love you always, Grandma.

Your Annie Tif. ❤️

Between Coffee & Curfew 🍵❤️