I’m Blog Boycotting For Granny Jane

There’s a breast cancer blog boycott going on. Until 25 people jump on this bandwagon, I’m not blogging anymore on this blog. Take part by learning more here and by buying M&Ms here.

I’m participating, due to the regret I have that my own Granny Jane lost her battle a little more than a year and a half ago.

Granny Jane was a wonderful woman, and at 68 years old she passed away. She was first diagnosed in the 80s and had a double mastectomy. I married her grandson in 1996 and spent the next 10 years in a love/hate relationship with this paradigm shattering woman. For the first few years I watched this matriarch lead her family and I, in some ways, just didn’t like her much. She was bold and tended to point out flaws and that just grated on my nerves. However, as I started to see her heart, and I started to understand just how much unselfish giving she hid from us (and from her husband at times LOL), my heart softened and I began to see just how sweet this seeming ‘busybody’ was.

In 1998, I started sewing. Granny Jane was a phenomenal seamstress so I always hid my work from her. I didn’t want to be reprimanded and her standards were far too high. Of course, inevitably she did see my sewing and though she did point out my errors, she shared with me her own struggles with sewing as a young mother and she offered to spend time showing me how to make my seams, darts, curves and tucks perfect. That Christmas, Granny Jane traveled the 2 hours to see us with a brand new Janome New Home sewing machine. At the time my husband and I lived on his $8 and hour salary and that $700 sewing machine was something that absolutely blew me away (and enabled us to start our first online business).

Over the years she’s shown her love for me in many ways, from buying sergers and patterns for me to sending notes of support and even asking me (the health nut) how she should go about becoming a vegan. This was the way that Granny Jane told us that doctor’s had found cancer in her liver, actually.

She called and asked us which juicer we had and if it was sturdy enough to withstand juicing 6 times per day (July). When pressed, Granny Jane gave us the news she’d heard earlier that day. A lady who’d always struggled with her weight, Granny Jane was starting a new diet plan and had gone to her physician to have herself checked out beforehand (very conscientious). When her blood tests were returned, they found elevated liver enzymes. She and her husband told no one in the family as they struggled through the battery of tests that followed. Finally her doctor confirmed that she indeed had a large spot on her liver. He referred her out to an oncologist. The oncologist concurred and asked her why she’d not followed up on her initial findings. When she and her husband began to dig in their file, they realized that her doctor had forgotten to let them know that a year ago her liver had two very small spots on it. A radiologist had circled them and written that they needed to be checked, especially with her history of breast cancer.

By the time they *did* find out, it was really too late. The doctor told her she had only a few months, if that, to live, and told her that while he could do chemo, it would only make her last months miserable. Of course, Granny Jane didn’t accept that and began a regimen that had her losing 30 lbs in only a few months and halted much of the growth of the cancer. But, by December, when she spent her last Christmas in our home, she was very weak and very chilled. She died a month later.

Granny Jane had great faith that she would beat cancer. As the toxins that her liver could no longer clean ate at her, she continued to wonder why she felt so bad. She’d sleep the entire day, coming in and out of consciousness to murmur, “I can’t wait until I can feel better again and get out of this bed.” Her faith was so strong that at times we believed she’d beat it too.

This wonderful woman left behind a handful of great grandchildren, more than a dozen grandchildren, my husband included, 4 children, a husband of 48 years and half a dozen cities that mourned her death (a pastor’s family often moves alot).

One of the sweetest memories I have is of listening to this cantankerous, at times, woman tell me how horrible my daughter’s name would be. I was pregnant at the time of her death (32 weeks) with my last daughter, Ruby. From the time we told her what the name would be, at 20 weeks or so, she kept telling me her name was an old lady’s name and that I’d be saddling her with a horrid name that would get her teased mercilessly. We all just laughed at her and told her to mind her own business, which she did. This was something she was used to hearing.

But, towards the end of my pregnancy and the end of her life, she and I shared a touching conversation in which she said that Ruby was a pretty name and that she had more than gotten used to the old timey name. She said she couldn’t wait to see little Ruby.

A few days before she passed we told her that we were going to name our baby Ruby Jane, after her sweet Grandma and we hope she was able to hear us. But, it always makes me giggle a little to know that one day I’ll get to tell her that her name is permanently linked to the name she so hated. She had a great sense of humor. I think she’d laugh at that one.