Whose Life Is It, Anyway?

Complicated feelings about my nana & not a Drew Carey reboot, I promise.

Peruse the aisles of a TJ Maxx and you’ll have no problem finding greeting cards devoted to “grandma’s famous cookies” or plaques and trinkets praising her cooking. The shared image of a grandma is one of abundance, one who says take, take, eat, eat.

One of the first memories I have of my grandma — er, nana — is us sitting in a big back booth in the smoking section at the now closed Plaza Diner in Fort Lee, New Jersey. It was all orange tinged and big windows and endless menu and the cloud of smoke swirling off the end of her only partially put out, impossibly long cigarette, most of which sat in the ashtray until the ash grew as long as the cigarette itself.

My mom recently bought nana a carton of regular length cigarettes in her usual brand, arguing she typically only smokes half of one at a time anyway. She wasn’t having it. Has to be impossibly long. Has to be impossibly thin.