GG
Yesterday, after a battle with cancer, Janet Kenahan, Bianca's grandma and Isaac and Ethan's "Rhode Island GG" passed away. We were very, very lucky to have known her and Ethan was very, very lucky to have a picture (or two) taken with her:
GG was truly a great lady. She grew up on Martha's Vineyard during the tail end of the Depression and the start of WWII. She was nurse at three different hospitals and she was tough as nails. More than all of that though GG was opinionated but never rude. She liked to listen to people and engage with them. She always had a trivia quiz for me, cut out of the newspaper. She was truly awesome.
Some of my favorite GG stories:
Domenic and Erica, pre-Myles (and us pre-Isaac) invited us over for dinner at their old house. They also invited GG over. We were all there to try Domenic's new white bean chili recipe. I dug in, Bianca took a spoonful, and GG took a bite. We all waited. Then, plain as day, GG said--"This is awful...ly delicious". The expression on Domenic's face (or more accurately the change in expression) between syllable two and three of the word "awfullly" told her all she needed to know.
She loved to give generous gifts and every year, like clockwork, I got a birthday card with some serious cash. One year, our old TV finally gave out and I was determined to get the best TV I could. I did lots of searching and I found a way to get a better TV than I would have been able to afford. It would not, however, be easy--I had to first, drive to NH (no sales tax) on the right day (sale) and then get the massive TV home myself. If any one of those things didn't happen, I couldn't afford the dream TV. But I timed it right and managed to squeeze the TV in my passenger seat of the old Civic. It was so big I had to roll down the window to get it to fit. But I did it. The next time that GG came to visit, I showed her the TV and thanked her for the cash. She was pleased to see that I got something I wanted. But then I told her all of the hoops I had to jump to save enough money to afford what I wanted. That was when she really started liking me. We had a connection--we knew that sometimes getting EXACTLY what you wanted takes a bit more.
She and Isaac got along famously, perhaps because unlike most adults, GG really talked to Isaac. She never did baby talk and never brushed him off. NEVER. She was just amazing with kids and Isaac (along with his cousins) delighted in being around her. Here is a video of her and Poppa Dom talking to Isaac when he was just starting to talk:
Above all Janet loved family. Even as she was getting sicker, she made a point to come, in person to the hospital to see Ethan. She even bestowed upon him her customary gift--a fat stack of bills she had meticulously saved over the years between Isaac and Ethan being born:
It is a shame she is gone, but we are all better for having met her. She set the bar pretty friggin' high for living a good life.
GG was truly a great lady. She grew up on Martha's Vineyard during the tail end of the Depression and the start of WWII. She was nurse at three different hospitals and she was tough as nails. More than all of that though GG was opinionated but never rude. She liked to listen to people and engage with them. She always had a trivia quiz for me, cut out of the newspaper. She was truly awesome.
Some of my favorite GG stories:
Domenic and Erica, pre-Myles (and us pre-Isaac) invited us over for dinner at their old house. They also invited GG over. We were all there to try Domenic's new white bean chili recipe. I dug in, Bianca took a spoonful, and GG took a bite. We all waited. Then, plain as day, GG said--"This is awful...ly delicious". The expression on Domenic's face (or more accurately the change in expression) between syllable two and three of the word "awfullly" told her all she needed to know.
She loved to give generous gifts and every year, like clockwork, I got a birthday card with some serious cash. One year, our old TV finally gave out and I was determined to get the best TV I could. I did lots of searching and I found a way to get a better TV than I would have been able to afford. It would not, however, be easy--I had to first, drive to NH (no sales tax) on the right day (sale) and then get the massive TV home myself. If any one of those things didn't happen, I couldn't afford the dream TV. But I timed it right and managed to squeeze the TV in my passenger seat of the old Civic. It was so big I had to roll down the window to get it to fit. But I did it. The next time that GG came to visit, I showed her the TV and thanked her for the cash. She was pleased to see that I got something I wanted. But then I told her all of the hoops I had to jump to save enough money to afford what I wanted. That was when she really started liking me. We had a connection--we knew that sometimes getting EXACTLY what you wanted takes a bit more.
She and Isaac got along famously, perhaps because unlike most adults, GG really talked to Isaac. She never did baby talk and never brushed him off. NEVER. She was just amazing with kids and Isaac (along with his cousins) delighted in being around her. Here is a video of her and Poppa Dom talking to Isaac when he was just starting to talk:
Above all Janet loved family. Even as she was getting sicker, she made a point to come, in person to the hospital to see Ethan. She even bestowed upon him her customary gift--a fat stack of bills she had meticulously saved over the years between Isaac and Ethan being born:
It is a shame she is gone, but we are all better for having met her. She set the bar pretty friggin' high for living a good life.