Happy Path

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Within a week of joining The Bank, my 100-year-old grandmother broke her hip. Grammy Sammy, as we called her, was the family matriarch and had been a fixture in my life since birth. Although she never lived with us, nor did she ever live in the same town as our family, she visited often and we talked on the phone every week when I was young.

Selma Merriam was my maternal grandmother and the only parent my mother ever knew. When Grammy was eight months pregnant, her husband was killed in a WWII training exercise. He jumped from a plane and his parachute failed to open. George Merriam was the love of my grandmother's life and she named their child, my mother Georgia, in his memory.

To me, George was the handsome man in a black-and-white photo that sat on my grandmother's credenza. Grammy would tell us how blue his eyes were and what a great dancer he was. She had a copy of an Air Force magazine featuring his illustrations, which she'd show us proudly. Although Grammy had one or two serious boyfriends that I remember, and was even remarried briefly, George was always the one.

My family moved a lot growing up, due to the nature of my father's job. He was a football coach in a variety of positions and locations over the course of his career. He started coaching at the University of Nebraska, where he had played and then stayed on as a graduate assistant. My mother also attended the university and was active in the Greek system and was a Cornhusker cheerleader. I suppose it was inevitable that their paths would cross. Eventually, coaching positions led them away from home and set my father on a path that became international by the time he retired. During my childhood, I lived in Washington, Iowa, Kansas, Montana and British Columbia. Wherever we were living, Grammy would come see us.

Over the moves and the span of thirteen years, my parents had three daughters, each born in a different state. Grammy was ready and waiting to help my mother when the firstborn, my older sister, came home. When I was due, Grammy arrived early to stay with my sister while my parents were at the hospital. When her third granddaughter arrived, Grammy was again on-hand and helped with the whole Donovan clan. Each time she travelled from Nebraska; first to South Dakota, then to Washington, and finally to Montana. She formed bonds with all of us from our very earliest days.

There was one particular story Grammy loved to tell about me. When I was two, I told my sister Andrea that Grammy was old and that she was going to die. As the firstborn, Andrea had a special relationship with "her Grammy". When I came along, Grammy was thrilled to have another grandchild to spoil, but Andrea was none too happy about having to share someone so special.

"Take that back!" Andrea screamed.

Even as a two-year-old, I'm sure I understood the gravity of what I'd said, given my sister's reaction. "I mean, she's just a little old," I recanted. I held up my pudgy fingers, barely spread apart, to indicate the smallness of Grammy's advanced age. At the time, Grammy wasn't yet 60 and still had plenty of living to do.

After retiring from a state job, Grammy started splitting her time between Nebraska and Arizona. We'd gone to see her in Arizona as a family, but I also had one very special trip on my own. The year I was in eighth grade, over spring break, I flew from Montana to Arizona to spend a week with my grandmother. Her apartment complex had a swimming pool and her neighbor had a talking parrot. We went out for dinner and we went to the movies and we went to the mall-all the things she knew her 11-year-old granddaughter would enjoy. In my memory, Grammy let me do just about anything I wanted to do because she was the best grandmother ever! I felt special and independent for making the trip on my own and for having Grammy all to myself. I even remember a favorite pair of shorts I wore while on vacation because my memories of that time remain vivid.