+ Inspired! +

Day 4 of 30 Day Writing Challenge: Write about Someone who Inspires You.

One of my biggest inspirations as far as people go would most likely have to be my Nana (She's in the black dress). She's my paternal grandmother. She was a cute Irish spitfire! She married into an Italian family where I gained my surname and my father.

Nana was fierce. She was strong. She had a seriousness about her that commanded attention. She was funny. She was the most generous and loving woman in existence. She was intelligent. She had a temper. She was mediocre at cooking, apparently - her pea soup could hold a spoon straight up.

She was a registered nurse. The thing about nurses are you have to be an incredible person to nurse. It requires intelligence, patience, sacrifice, love, and endless tolerance. I've only had to do some similar things in my jobs that nurses do, but already I can tell I could never do it. I hate bodily functions too much. Also the other things you need to do. I heard many stories from my dad as a child where he'd be sick and she'd just shoot a needle full of penicillin into his butt. Who wants to do that?

I grew up talking to her every night on the phone, she'd visit for weeks at a time, and in the summer she'd let me fly to see her for a month at a time. She taught me to cross-stitch. She taught me a tiny bit on her old piano. She bought me my first Harry Potter book after I talked about how awesome it was when my forth grade teacher read it to us in school (it just hit the US and no one heard about it enough to ban it in schools yet). She gave me my love of shark week and tea. She always watched the same movies with me when I visited her - Fly Away Home, Alaska, Balto, and Grease; none of which I've watched since her death, though I did buy them on DVD.

She gave me my pale skin, medium-brown hair, face, sharp eyes, and resting bitchface. Don't get me wrong, I look like my father, too. And a bit like my mom. I look most like Nana, though. Even at her funeral and wake everyone commented how I looked exactly like her. The best compliment I've gotten.

Some of my favorite stories of her:

She had five children. My dad was the second and eldest male. As you can imagine, they were hellians. One night at dinner they were fighting or being messy, I'm unsure which. Nana had enough and announced, "if you want to act like pigs, you can eat like them!". Then proceeded to flip the table upside down sending spaghetti flying everywhere. The hellians looked at the spaghetti, each other, their mom, and laughed. She flew into more of a rage.

Another story has my dad on his 16th birthday having won a fishing contest that he took home his prize fish. He hadn't cleaned it yet and had it sitting in the fridge. Well, Nana hated fish - A LOT. She told dad he better clean it and find a place for it or she would. Dad took too long because he was a teenager. She picked it up and threw it from their fifth floor apartment in Brooklyn. Out the window the fish sailed and my dad went racing after it only to get to it after it'd been street swept...

The stories paint her as a spitfire and a madwoman, but she calmed down infinitely in her older age. She was always giving people things- gifts, food, time, taking us on vacations. She loved shopping, especially at the BMX. She'd never leave anyone out at Christmas and always have gifts to charities for kids. She made gifts when the family had kids. I cross stitched most of the bibs for the kids with her. A tradition I kept up on. She loved black licorice (good and plenty style), snow caps, juju bees, dots, orange slices, and always had them by her chair. The one she randomly fell asleep in in the middle of the afternoon. She had the best taste in jewelry.

She was always making sure I went to monuments, aquariums, parks, etc. when I visited despite never leaving the car. My aunt and uncle would go with me while she happily waited in the car to make sure I got education and saw things. She took me to see the natural bridge, lurray caverns, Monticello, aquariums, took me to light houses, family beach houses in kitty hawk, the Wright brother monument, etc.

She was one of my most favorite people. I strive to be like her. I do things in hopes that she'd be proud of me. I wanted to graduate college for her, and I did. I was the first grandchild to graduate college and that was my biggest hope! I got confirmed because I knew she'd want it. I do what I can to honor her life and the blood in our veins.