Kettle

True superheroes do not wear spandex with itchy tags; instead they wear nondescript clothing over their soft skin and warm bones. Superheroes do not all have capes to give them a sense of presence, we need no such fanfare for those we love so much, they color the air with a sense of blush sweetness, no matter the weave or fabric of their vestments.
My very British Nana was all of that to me. She may have had jiggly arms in place of tight biceps, but they enfolded me so very well. For any doubters, she did have an official hero’s mark on her, a simple rendition of a flower tattooed forever on her inner forearm. She had gotten it when she was nine years old, from a sojourning cart at the end of the street. One could do those kinds of things if one were born in Colonial Calcutta, India, and had enough gumption, and a good dose of sass to carry out such mischief. She definitely had that and more…
Mona was the oldest of three girls, sent away to an orphanage when their father died and their mother could not afford to maintain the household. Despite this adversity, Nana grew up to become a nurse.
My Grandfather Ken, was riding his motorbike and got gored in the eye by a bull, when he was recovering in hospital, he met Nana. As a PE instructor in the army, he could bark out commands to hundreds of massive men and have them jump to action, but he adored his feisty wife and turned into a puddle of indelible softness where she was concerned. When he went off to war, it was she who slept atop a metal cage, where the children slept for safety, and the whistling of bombs tore the air to shreds.
When I met her, she was in the prime of life, the elemental British Nana. That involved amongst other things, skills as a quintessential bargain hunter. She made it a hunting sport. Nana walked around clutching her leather clasp handbag on the red bus to town, the strap settling into the crook of her arm, her tiny feet in sensible sandals. Her hair was always coiffed carefully into a little round halo of steely grey curls around her face.
We would catch the red city bus to Rosebank, to see the sales, marching in and out of stores, while she sometimes triumphantly found the very thing she needed. More often than not though, the hunt was good enough, and she would ask with her blue eyes twinkling, if we should just get some chocolate and go on home. South-African chocolate is a whole experience on its own. To me, it was worth its very own field trip, either that or she would take me for another haircut, and then some chocolate.
She liked to cut my hair really short, perhaps it was her time in the orphanage, but somehow an idea of a neat and tidy child (which was not bloody likely from me anyway) meant shorn hair. More likely it was my hairs' tendency to curl out of control with a will of its own, so it would be trimmed into submission more regularly then you may imagine.
We got along as compatriots. I was her youngest grandchild, her 'darling', and I loved everything about her in return.
We would listen to classical music together, watch Golden Girls on television and have tea with milk and condensed milk drizzled in. On weekend mornings, I got to drink the spilt coffee from her saucer, it was strong and hot and just slightly sweet.
I came home to Nana’s house every day, as Mom worked full time. Right after school, I could always go and get a glass of cold milk from the fridge, The way it created an opaque film as it moved inside the glass, was slightly mesmerizing, and made it even more delicious…
Even simple toast with butter was better when Nana made it. Her specialty however, was true farm fudge, which was crisp and square, with a bit of creamy resistance unlike the gooey, muddiness which is considered fudge here in America. It was hardened in trays and was always eaten within hours.
There would be a draw full of candy in her bedroom; I would open it, to the scent of chocolate and toffees wafting out of it. Next to it was the drawer with her cosmetics, her shell shaped soaps and her lavender perfume. Everything Nana owned was pretty. Her bridge pencils had tassels on them. She collected Little Bone China figurines, which I was allowed to play with if I was careful.
The porcelain had smoothness, a delicacy, and tiny detailed fingers and toes, or paws and whiskers. Play with these, involved less movement and more focus. I would sit them together on the end table polished to sheen, and they could then discourse freely in my vivid imagination.

The way things looked, was quite important to Nana. I think creating her own sense of home and status gave her an appreciation for a sense of normal acceptance. I think she must have dreamed about bridge parties in the orphanage.
She was blissful when she entertained. She served delicate, wafer thin cumber sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off. (I ate all the crusts when nobody was looking, it’s the best part.) She had biscuits or Scottish shortbread arranged on a plate, and when the kettle whistled, brought forth steaming pots of tea, poured into rose painted teacups edged in gold leaf. Molly and Teddy, sisters apparently, were two of her closest friends, they all played bridge on special square, fuzzy, green tables.
Social issues galvanized her, or simply just any issues . She would type out letters on her little typewriter. Occasionally she sent a letter to the minister of education if she did not like what my school had done, and would get an answer from them too. The anxious principal would ask my Mother to intervene, pulling on his moustache nervously.
Nana had a sewing machine and on a whim, sometimes made me clothing. I did love what she made for me; it was never ugly or frilly, just comfortable and special to me.
This was my Nana; she was a lovely force of nature, determined as all hell, definitely not universally popular, a bit of a battle axe really, but just so wonderful.

The night my Father died, I was freshly ten years old. I had been sleeping over in her house , while my Mom stayed near the deathbed. It was 2.a.m. when I saw their light on in the dark hours.
“Why is Mommy coming home?”
“You know why… “
It was she who told me, and she was so right, I knew.

What I didn’t know was how precious Nana’s words were. How transient she herself was going to be... Within days, there was the wail of sirens, taking her away, the sliding, the stroke, the melting, the asymmetry. The way things tilted so suddenly, and never came perfectly right…
My sister Debbie got married weeks later. The wedding was a celebration laced in pain, without my father there; there was a glaring space in every picture, in every gesture and blessing. Debbie was so happy, she was glowing. Mom was holding it together somehow.
Then Nana arrived, and I saw her for the first time since her stroke. She was in a wheelchair, pushed by a blank faced nurse. I ran up to her with sheer joy on my face, this woman was just so important to me, and I had felt her absence like a constant dull ache behind my ribs and in my stomach.
The odor of hospital hung around her; she did not smell as she would have wanted to. A dull crochet blanket was on her knees and her once expressive mouth was slack on one side. She had lost a lot of weight, and had seemed to draw inwards, like a wooden puppet with tangled strings. Her right hand curled uselessly, and was cradled by her other hand, held close to her chest. Her hair was straight, nobody had curled her hair, not even for this wedding.

She could not return my greeting but looked at me with sad, blue eyes... which held me.

Oh Nana, what was it like when the words dried up?

Now coming home from school to her house, was quieter. I watched television, there was no conversation to be had, and I tried. Grandpa was silent, he would answer a question quietly and revert back to silence, a waiting, where Nana should have broken in and now there was just a void.
I bathed her sometimes, feeling it as a way to express the love we could no longer express in conversation, which were always so frustrating, because she wanted to say things, and just couldn’t. I could tell her about my day, but without her sharp insights and observations and wry humor, it was just not the same at all.
I would feed her ice cream, she was so thin now, and it had to be ice cream, because at least it had calcium and protein in it… I know, she did still have plenty of tea though. Grandpa tried his best to make her tea and something to eat regularly. In retrospect, even with a part time housekeeper cooking food for them, they were just no longer interested in surviving for much longer.
I tried to help her, desperately tried to communicate with her. I cut pictures out of magazines, pasting them in a book with categories like food, and other such mundane needs, so she could point and let me know what she needed. It sometimes worked, often not.
Sometimes, she could say a word, or part of a word after me. I would encourage her “Come on Nana,” you can do it. You can say it.” Sometimes she would try, then cry, we both would.

One day she managed to say the word “kettle”, in two parts Ket-ttle… and it was such a small victory, and she said it again then, while Grandpa got her another cup of tea, and my stomach began hurting.

What was it like saying kettle Nana, and delighting that your tongue could still form a word, and have that joy so laced with the horror of the very fact, the very act that forming a word had come to this…a bitter prize indeed.
And she had said it, forming the world clumsily on her tongue,
Ke-ttle.
And it was victory, a victory as raggedly sharp with pain as it was with joy, so it had come to this.
True horror is the inversion of potential, of what could have been, should have been, the knowing… that wrongness has prevailed for this moment… and yet… it hadn't, not here.

We are all such human, frail creatures and she lived her life with such incredible, bright tenacity, and she loved me. Her trying to say that word for me, involved such sheer bravery and love. She taught me so much about loving somebody properly, that dignity and suffering take a backseat to showing and trying, however we still can, to love... my superhero Nana.