Safe Travels, Maya's Granny

(Photo Credit: http://mayagranny.blogspot.com/)

If you go back into this blog and read people's comments, you might notice a poster named Maya's Granny. Maya's Granny is the nom de plume of a woman I've "known" online for years as the wise sage of an online group I've belonged to for 13 years. She has always given amazing advice, which she gained through a very interesting life, which she talked about on her blog, http://mayagranny.blogspot.com/. She also posted her opinions on everything from politics to food (and size acceptance) to feminism to her favorite television episodes. As she said in her blog intro, "This is where I share the wisdom that a granny, as an elder of the tribe, accumulates in her journey through life. The reach of my mind is wide, and sometimes even a little deep. Sometimes, like Whitman, I contradict myself. Sometimes I wax eloquent. Sometimes I fall on my face. Why not do it in public?"

MG loved her granddaugher Maya so much. Click here to read the story of when Maya was born. By the end of it, I was so teary and touched that I sent it to both of Megan's grandmothers, and they were moved by it too. (And it is a perfect example of what an amazing writer MG is.)

I met MG in person in November 2003, when a bunch of us "online folks" met in Las Vegas for a weekend. I told her that I respected her opinion so much that I wanted to take her into a quiet room and tell her all my problems so she could solve them.

In a blog posting right after Megan started eating solid food, I was writing about how all Megan was eating was cereal and applesauce, and that I needed to be patient. Maya's Granny wrote, "Apple sauce, oat cereal, and apple sauce stirred into oat cereal. See, she already has two items and a recipe."

After another post about infant Megan, MG wrote, "She is so beautiful. Makes me want to hold her and smell her sweet baby smell and feel her soft baby skin and hear her soft baby breath -- and kiss her belly and her arches and nibble on her toes. Do that for me, OK?"

When I was on bedrest during the in vitro that led to beautiful Megan, MG wrote, "Enjoy your bedrest and know that there are folks out there with you in our hearts."

And in a post where I was talking about how I couldn't describe what it felt like "to have a child look at you and really, really LOOK at you and trust you and love you, even though she's too young to know what any of that means," MG wrote back that when her son, Richard, was born, "My ex-husband told me, when Richard was just a few hours old, that if I ever looked at him the way Richard did, I would have him as my slave for eternity. That gaze that doesn't know there is anything else in the universe and wouldn't look away if it did."

Maya's Granny passed away this morning after an illness that started in February. The world is a little emptier without her, but if there is a Heaven, oh boy, did they just hit the jackpot.

Safe travels, Maya's Granny. Megan's Mama loves you, misses you, and will always carry you in her heart.