Missing my Nan at Easter

I was a bit sad coming into this Easter without my Nan. It hit me all of a sudden. But after talking to a few people at work and with the counselor, and talking to my Nan every day about what I am doing and why as though she were here, seems to have helped things to settle back down.

It's hard to explain my Nan to other people. She wasn't the fun loving, outgoing, nice grandmother that I've heard so many of you talk of fondly. She was tough, didn't really care for children or minding them, and called a spade a spade out loud and often to her detriment. She could be really cruel on occasion, but really generous and asked lots of questions about family as well. She suffered from depression often, often over medicated before she was in the higher grade homes, and had really believed that because her mother had been a tyrant to her that now she was old she could be a tryant to everyone else and they would put up with it. It was like secret pay back. Of course, that didn't work out too well for her, alienating most of the family away from her, and her telling whopper lies about exactly why that was meant that no one came back.

For all that my Nan was, of all my family, I always felt most connected with her. I liked that she was strong willed and unbending and down the line on what she liked and didn't like, because I just wasn't like that. And I liked that even when the dementia took a hold, that part of Nan did not disappear.
And I loved hearing stories of Nan's childhood, which she remembered up to when she was 93. She would tell me all her regrets, particularly around education and being a farmers daughter, the second youngest of eight, and the lack of opportunities for her. And she told me other things, things that kind of explained quite alot about her for me.

She made me crocheted rug after rug (often forgetting that the last one she had given me), all from memory, but I refused every attempt at pushing money my way. My Nan gave money with expectations and strings attached later on, and I never wanted to go through that with her, so I put my foot down about that.

Even though she was a mix of good (and alot of bad) I really did love her and enjoy spending time with her (though on the evil Nan days I would just leave early if all she was going to do was badmouth my parents or me) even after the dementia came in and she couldn't remember things much anymore. She still remembered faces and she wasn't ever violent.

I just miss her.