Yes, I’m a little late posting today, but I had a special visitor. My great-grandmother came to visit me. Now, if you’re thinking, “Wait, Hotfessional is forty-freakin’-five, how old must her great grandmother be?”, let me tell you a little about this amazing woman.

My paternal grandmother was one of nine children. Her father - a wonderful, tall, true gentleman, had those nine children with his first wife. After she died (I never knew her), he went back to Lebanon and brought home a wife 30 years younger than himself. She’s my Great-Gramma. And great means great in every single way.

She bore him 4 more children… the youngest of which is eleven months older than me. Her eldest daughter married a man that I had a huge crush on when I was ten. Her two sons, the middle children, are doctors.  The baby, a daughter, was one of my best friends growing up.

Anyway, my Great-Gramma, is a breast cancer survivor. She still bakes all of the old country Middle-eastern sweets - from scratch. As near as I can tell, she’s in her early-to-mid eighties and drives wherever she needs to go, as long as it’s not dark. She hops onto planes and goes to see her daughter in Toronto or one of the two that are in California. She remembers all of her great-great grandchildren’s names - and hugs them all with a ferocity that surprises even them.

She’s my dear little Great-Gramma. I can kneel and hug her. She decided that she wanted to come see my house and the birdhouse that MomandDad made that match it.

I brewed coffee for my Dad, but she said she didn’t want anything. I asked her if she’d like a glass of water. She held my hand and said, “Later. Talk to me first.” I laughed and we talked about her old house in the Arab part of Dearborn. We talked about her grandson - the one with Autism - and she shook her head and said, “He’s so handsome. He’s so big and handsome. He just can’t talk. He’s 14 and he’s so much work for his mom. He’s such a sweet boy.” (Kelley, I thought about you. You would love this woman, not only for her love of her boy, but because I can only imagine that, (except for your potty-mouth-snort!), she is just your type of woman!)

When she walked into my kitchen while I got my Dad’s coffee, she grabbed my arm. “I changed my mind. I want coffee.”

So we went back out onto the deck with our coffee and talked some more. Then they had to leave so she could drive home while it was still light out. And I thought of one more thing that my mother told me about this special lady.

When my great-grandfather died, he was 72.  He’s been dead just over 35 years. But right after he died, Great-Gramma called my mother (one of her favorite people in the world, I know) and told her she had something to give her. My mother went to her side, grateful that this woman who had just gone through so much, was calling her, the Polish-Catholic one that married into this Lebanese family.

—- What did my mother walk away with that day? What was so important to my Great-Gramma that during her period of mourning, she called this blonde, blue-eyed Pole to her side? Well, Great-Gramma bestowed upon my mother one thing that makes me laugh to tears even thinking about it today. Her left-over birth control pills. —-