Inspirations from cheese in a can. joey, kelly, danny, and charlie

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This is my Nana.  Her name is Charlene.  She grew up in Wrightsville, Ga (same town as Herschel Walker, she’ll tell you).  She was a younger child in a family of girls, and her father’s name was Charlie.  As far as I can tell, there is nothing my Nana enjoys more than holding a baby.  Here she is with Charlie.  She has spent what probably adds up to years bouncing babies, singing songs like “Three six nine, the goose drank wine, the monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line….”

I’ve been lucky to have a few wonderful women as my grandmothers, but she is the last.  And since that’s the case, I can now tell you that while I genuinely have loved them all, she’s my favorite.  It’s because of her disposition….she’s always been so sweet, happy, untroubled.  I wish I had her happy genes, but alas, since she’s my grandmother by marriage, there’s no chance of that.  I do hope, though, that having her name could in some way help my daughter to have a disposition like hers.

Nana is not doing so good, y’all.  She’s been diagnosed this year with diabetes, and then pancreatic cancer.  This is not a pleasant member of the cancer family.  I’ve been spending a lot of time pretending otherwise, for my tender granddaughter’s heart’s sake, but it’s possible that Nana may not have a lot of time left here to be my favorite.  Please pray, or think, or do what you do, for my Nana.  And my Papa, who has been right beside her, worrying over her like a new father, through it all.