From Sturdy Stock

Today is my grandmother's birthday.

She's getting up there in age, but you wouldn't know it to talk to her, to see her, to shop with her.
She got married at 16.  She was, like the infamous DJ Quik, born and raised in Compton, CA.  She was actually Compton's beauty queen.  She got bored and left her husband for the milkman after having her first two children, the oldest of which is my dad.  She had two more children with that mean bastard.  That's what we call him even 20 years after his alcoholism-induced death:  that mean bastard.  The oldest of those two children is my aunt.

These two women are two of the best friends I have ever had in my entire life.    They are also two of the strongest women I have ever met in my life.  My grandmother went on to marry again, and, wouldn't you know it, actually found love that time around, but then had to bury him a few years ago.

She has survived, and thrived, through two different kinds of cancer, a horribly painful bad hip that finally got replaced long after it should have, falling through all-glass shelving face first, and a broken wrist, and that's just in the last decade.  I called her up today and spoke to both her and my aunt and instantly felt a rush of pride.

These women, after all the pain, both physical and emotional, still have their sense of humor, are quick to laugh, even at their own expense, and continue to reach out and find reasons to be interested in me, a granddaughter and niece who does not call or write as often as I should, much less visit.

These are the women who have taught me to keep fighting even when it feels hopeless.  These are the women who have patched me up when I have fallen and then pushed me back into the fray stronger than before.

During my senior year of college I was struggling to graduate with a part-time job and a 24 unit quarter that included 5 final essays for classes in three different languages.  I was frustrated.  I wanted so bad to graduate suma cum laude and I needed all A's to do it.
Randomly, my grandmother called me, for no reason, just to check on me, in the middle of my desperation about which she knew nothing.
I spilled my guts to her, unloading the full weight of my frustration, and she said to me something that I remember distinctly today.
Calmly, in her sweet, sing-song voice:
"Honey, you can only do one thing at a time.  So no matter how overwhelmed you might feel, just line up all your tasks and complete them one at a time.  You'll get them all done, and you'll do them well.  I know you will."
It has been two years since that phone call.  I did graduate suma cum laude.  I got my A's.  And I did do the incredible amount of tasks I had, one at a time.

I think about what she's been through, the life that she must reflect on, and wonder how it is she always knows the right thing to say.  And how it is that those words, those moments, that strength, those memories, stick with me, and come to mind when I need to recall them.
I am now facing a similar situation to my senior year in college, here in my last year of an M.A. program (how do I keep getting myself into this?) and today, on her birthday, I remembered those words as I began letting the overwhelmed feeling rise up in me.  One thing at a time, Shanna.  One thing at a time.
And then I remembered it was her birthday, and, for the millionth time, I silently prayed that I have inherited her survivor's spirit, her wisdom, her sense of humor, her strength, and yes, her wild, rebellious, restless soul.
This is what I come from.  Sturdy stock.

Happy Birthday, Granny.