For those of you looking for a poem about my Nanny, I have updated this piece with a more recent poem I wrote for her. You can view it here: Saying goodbye to Nanny (take two) 

On this ninth year anniversary of my Nanny, my grandmother’s, my father’s mother’s death I can’t help but feel remorse, sorrow and anger over her death. I say anger because nine years ago I wrote, in my opinion, an amazing poem that completely captured her in all of her wonderful essence. And though I’ve come across her poem from time to time since then, it escapes me today. I have been buried the entire day among file after file, as I have been trying to find this poem, be in written form or among hard drives since then replaced. Eric and I both have searched in vain as that poem continues to elude us. The sad part is that posting that poem in itself, to me, meant that I was honoring her memory. Now I realize that my emotion and my love for her is its own memory. So in it’s still to be found absence I give you this.

My grandmother, who I coined “Nanny” (even though she demanded I call her grandmother) was the first face I saw when I was adopted at three. She was often the first face each morning before school, as both my parents worked. She instilled the desire in me to brush my teeth and wash behind my ears. She introduced me to spam, vienna sausage and pan fried pork chops. She was, in a lot of ways, everything to me. She was my beginning as it pertains to my adopted life and she was there for me, unconditionally throughout my trying teenage years. I loved her, love her and named my daughter after her. I will leave you with this, because all I can remember from that poem that I hope to find very soon is:

And of Grace, I can tell you, she loved everyone she knew.