the adventures of dos tortas

Long before grandmothers ran marathons, Nan would show up at our house in New Jersey, unannounced. We knew she arrived when her car pulled into our long country drive. “Nan’s here!” We were excited. It was a time before internet and cell phones. As the matriarch I guess she never felt the need to let us know she was coming. Sometimes she stayed for months.

Nan drove well into her eighties and would tell us often that the worse day of her life was when my uncle took her car keys. She was a traveling fool, visiting here and there while waving to the truck drivers. She carried all her worldly possessions in her trunk (boot for you Brits).

One day Nan arrived and announced her intention to drive from New Jersey to Florida to visit family. She whisked me away to keep her company on the long drive to Miami. I was a lanky twelve year old. My parents never thought to tell her no.

I was mesmerized at Weeki Wachee State Park where to this day mermaids breathe underwater through skinny tubes and perform somersaults with long hair floating behind them.

We also took a boat ride along the Florida coast to stare agog at enormous seaside mansions that defied reality. Our reality for sure.

My grandmother was born in 1896. She was labeled rebellious when to everyone’s horror she divorced my grandfather. My mother told stories of packing up her three siblings and moving in the middle of the night when they couldn’t pay the rent. Nan later lived with a man for ten years whom she never married. I remember him. She was an independent woman who unapologetically forged her own way.

Her name was Alicia Wade Marder. It is important that we tell womens’ stories. She was my grandmother and she shaped my life in ways I’m still discovering. This is for my grandchildren, so they know their herstory. Love you Nan.

DOS TORTAS

Tags: aging, grandmothers, old women, telling our stories