I swore I wasn't having any issues at all when Mr. Egg came home yesterday and said, "Dude, you're in total freak mode" as I flitted about our home cleaning crevices and pacing nervously. And today when we drove the 20 miles to our tiny joke of a county airport I played it cool. And dudes, I drove in my minivan (which I LOVE, but that is a post for another day) to pick her up and Monkey fell asleep en route and once I pulled into short term parking my dad offered to run in and check the arrival board. I offered to do it while he waited in the car with the sleeping child. As soon as I put the van in park I knew I wanted to go into the bar and have a beer. So I offered to go in, that was my logic although it wasn't shared.

I went into the airport and headed straight to the bar. I ordered a beer and downed it in less than 5 minutes. Luckily the bar was set up with windows overlooking the runway so I could see when the plane landed, it's such a small airport there are only a few flights a day. I saw a plane land and guzzled the rest of my beer and headed downstairs to the one arrival gate. I waited as the tiny jet set up their stairs and the people began to file off. My eyes were searching for an old, short, round lady but nobody was fitting that description. It turned out this was not the flight I was looking for, the one I was waiting for was arriving a few minutes later. My first thought? Dude, I could totally be having another beer right now. Less than 10 minutes later I see my grandmother. She is not walking towards the arrival gate but being pushed in a wheelchair. My heart drops a bit. It hasn't been that long since I've seen my Gram. Over two years, to be sure, the last time was when I was in my first trimester with Monkey. But to see her in a wheelchair? A shock. She was wheeled through and we made small talk as we waited for her luggage. We all piled into the van and headed home, picking up my step-father along the way and all had lunch at my house. My dads left to return to work and I spent the afternoon with my Gram.

Monkey stole her heart and climbed all over her and I did my best to entertain the both of them and refrain from getting too intimate or political with her. As the hours passed my tongue loosened. I began cooking dinner and opened a bottle of wine and then Mr. Egg came home which broke the ice a bit more.

It's complicated with my Gram. I always felt like a disappointment. I've always been unconventional and she's very mainstream. She's very conservative and Catholic. She was a nun, dudes. For a couple of years in her late teens. We are coming from such different places. She shops at Wal-Mart on a daily basis. She lives off of pharmaceuticals, carbonated sugar water and boxed meals filled with msg. She nearly hyper-ventilated when we told her there wasn't a Wal-Mart here. And when she made the comment, "Oh you must be behind the times up here" and we responded "No, it's a choice. They wanted to build here but the community successfully fought them out", she just couldn't wrap her head around it.

I made a beautiful, fresh meal made with mostly organic and local ingredients (four cheese polenta with a salad of red leaf lettuce with walnuts, feta, apples, dried cranberries and apple gouda sausage) and as I set the plate before her she said, "I'm definitely trying something new tonight". She enjoyed it and I loved that she expanded her palate and maybe it expanded her world a bit.

Mr. Egg bounced to bed early and we stayed up talking about family stuff and secrets and motherhood and birthing and varying lifestyles and religion and anything else you can think of. I listen quietly as she tells me of my cousins back home on the Gulf Coast and instead of the usual disdain I feel over things like a cousin who shot off the leg of his mother's fiance or the cousin and his wife who were both arrested for domestic violence while their daughter is dealing with neuroblastoma or my favorite aunt who was so traumatized by Katrina that she can't leave her home and is on more than a dozen medications which still leave her unable to function properly. All I thought in these moments of her relaying details, although most of the time I write them off with barely a shrug of my shoulders, is that regardless of how much I find their lives disdainful they are my family and I love them and a part of me will always miss the connection we all had in childhood.

I come from a large family. My father was one of 9 and my mother was one of 7. I have 26 first cousins. All of whom lived near me whilst growing up. We had large family gatherings during holidays and although I have no siblings a couple of my cousins fill that role. But since I branched out on my own and left Louisiana I rarely have much contact with any of my family left behind. To be honest, I often feel better than the majority of them. And when I have returned home to visit I know they have felt that although I have tried my best to hide my feelings of superiority. It's not just because they live in trailers. It's not just because they live off of food stamps. It has to do with that fact they most of them continually act in ways that bring to mind Jerry Springer guests. The white trash lifestyle has absolutely nothing to do with money. People who have all the money in the world can still act in ways that place them in the decidedly shallow end of the gene pool which seems to render them unable to function in a rational and evolved manner.

I actually managed to get my Gram to admit these faults, for the first time in my life. And as we spoke about mothering and the various aspects of how much it affects one's self and life I felt, for the first time in my life, a real connection with her. One that ventured far beyond anything I had felt for her before. The older I get the more I find our relationship deepening.

She spoke at length about her more-than-poor Cajun upbringing in the Louisiana swamp with 11 siblings and a drunken father who died when she was 5. She told me about sharing a bed with four of her sisters and how cold it was in the winter, that if they left a glass of water by their bed it would be frozen by the time they woke up because there was only one heater in the house and it was the stove on which they cooked in the kitchen. She persevered through days where there just wasn't enough food to eat and when she married my grandfather they had 9 kids and managed to do well for themselves. She lacked patience and wasn't the best mother, she admits that, but she did the best she could with the tools she had at the time. She also wasn't always the best grandmother, she's been harsh with me plenty of times and never hid her dislike for my mother.

But, through all of the bullshit and the family drama? She is the only grandmother I've known from my dad's side and she has a good heart. She loves us all and would do anything for us. If I ever turned up on her doorstep she would take me in without a second thought and hug me hard before cooking me up some food. She is here for the next week and I'm absorbing every moment I can. She is 77 and having some serious health problems. She recently got out of the hospital and is basically living with congestive heart failure. I realize this may be the last time I see her. And I know this is most likely the only time Monkey will meet her great-grandmother. So I will soak up this next week and make the most of every moment.

Since I've become a mother the idea of family seems to resonate on such a deeper level than before. And I want to honor that. Regardless of how much our politics differ, I am able to be honest with her, completely, and even if she doesn't agree she listens. And what more can I ask for?