[wisewoman]

We are told that children can't grow up and have a conscience, a sense of attachement if they are not safe in some place in their lives. So I was thinking about my Nanny. She was not really a presense until later in my youth. My neighbor actually made food for me and gave me dry socks and mittens. she taught me what it was like to be cared for. Heck, she swept the floor and made me lunch. My Nanny, she was weird, she was opinionated, she was my Nanny. She was not perfect, she drank and she said hurtful things to her daughter, my aunt. But to me she was loving. To me she reached out and made me feel special. She washed my undies for me. She asked me about my life. She was racist, in a funny way because she didn't know it. I couldn't have contact with her as a young adult much because the mother hated her so. I wish that I had been a better grand daughter because she was my Nanny and she cared for me. She was funny when I married a Jewish man. Now lets understand that where I grew up I do not think there were jewish people. I had never heard the word jew before highschool. So she was racist but liked my spouse. She was a girl who was married at 15 and raised in the back woods and had 4 kids. The father is one of them. A very dysfunctional family with estrangements everywhere but I loved my Nanny. She was kind to me. Very few showed me kindness. The mother hated her and let her die an alone death when there were many who would have done the death watch with her. My Nanny died a few days before we adopted our middle legal child. Her burial was the date of the adoption which I would not put off. She after all was dead and I had finally become strong in that I would not talk with the female parent because she only ever yelled and critisized me. She pretended to be caring for Nanny but it was bull. And now I am old enough to be a Nanny, kids better not do that to me yet. and I miss her. She was kind.. To me she was kind.

Your Nanny sounds really special. I'm glad you had her. You deserved to have her. I'm sure she understood how things were with the mother and why you weren't able to see her as much as you would have liked. Thank you for sharing this.

[kimmydawn]

ww, i'm glad your nanny was nice to you and treated you special. i'm glad she was in your life. ppl don't have to be socially "perfect" to be special...they just have to touch us kindly somewhere. in nanny's we don't want to see what others might, we want to see that different kindness that means something to us...that different kindness that makes them our nannies.

I'm glad you have that to remember. some of our kindest childhood memories are of poppy. he was mean to alot of ppl and they didn't like him. he was born, raised and lived down a holler road in west virginia. he was a simple man...and he was my poppy. he may not have been nice to alot of ppl, but he loved me. true, simple, smiling love. it made me feel even more special as i got older because i saw that he could be mean to ppl and how much he loved me...it made it an even deeper love somehow.

Thank you for sharing.

Kimmydawn

[wisewoman]

Love you guys, please see post in grief

[wisewoman]

half dead inside right now. Can't move from the grief. Can't understand.