A great lady

In honor of Lillian Price (October 24, 1917 - August 6, 2009)

Last week in Kansas City, my Nana passed away at the age of 91. Until recently, she had lived on her own in her well maintained home, continuing to cook for herself and do her laundry down the steep basement steps. She was an original. We liked to spar on political issues of the day, talk about current events and share photos and travel stories (mostly mine) around her large oval dining table. As a child I think Nana's appearance came off as rather proper and well, stern. But through the years, I got a better understanding of her as a woman and as a grandmother. She was a plain spoken and religious person from a farming background. Though her worldview was not as broad as the one I had grown up and into, Nana still found a way to connect with me despite our very different perspectives. When I pulled into her driveway with a Darwin "fish" sticker on my car during a road trip in college, she laughed and said "what will my neighbors think?"

Waking up at Nana's meant reading the Kansas City Star over a cup of coffee and powdered sugar donuts (my favorite) while we chatted about the weather. She liked her scandal too and sometimes offered a bit of gossip about a neighbor or some strange happenings in the city. She spoke with a slight "Missour-ah" twang and tossed around the word "kid" with a kind of wake-up-and-listen tone. When I was pregnant, I made a surprise visit to KC to reconnect with some old high school friends and I hadn't wanted to work her up about me dropping by in case I couldn't make the flight. So when I landed, I called and shocked her with a "what are you up to this afternoon?" query and she happily took me in for an afternoon of food and good conversation.

We ended up digging through her cedar chest, rummaging through old family photos and she described different scenes and people to me in stunning detail. Her mind was so sharp and her recollection of those times like a window into another lifetime. For Nana, it had been over 25 years since she'd lost her husband and over 70 since her wedding, and yet we talked about her wedding dress (a long deep brown tunic) and their lives starting out in California after the war as if it was yesterday. She was a rather stoic lady but her emotions could run very high. She told me of an aunt who had made a rather disparaging comment about my grandfather's Native American heritage which she never forgot, nor apparently forgave. It was the kind of wounding that stings most when you love someone. I think at that moment I realized how much she loved my grandfather and how much I wished I had known him better.

Having a daughter of my own now has made me appreciate my ties to family and to the history we all inherit. I only hope that Elisa will have the chance to know her grandparents well and to see them as the complex and loving people they are.