On life with Momma and Nance

I have come to recognize, and now to love, that I am my Momma’s child. I have rebelled for years against the idea that we share the same personality.

Life with Momma was a dance. I reached out, she pushed away. She reached out I pushed away. In the end, we came together, and beautiful was the dance.

Momma had a younger sister named Nancy but called her Nance. Accepting that Momma and I share a personality is to accept that I share one with Nance. They were twin sisters born 18 months apart. Momma and Nance shared a room until Momma married, then they shared a family. Momma could have babies, and Nance knew how to raise them. Even on family Vacations, they shared a bed, Momma sleeping between Daddy and Nance.

Nance was my nanny until the age of three when she moved to Bountiful to start her own life. Most of my memories of these early years are shadows. We spent so much time together, people accused her of having a child out of wedlock. Nance taught me how to love and that people could be trusted to fill my needs.

After Nance was married and she and Jack had no babies, Momma would send a child each summer to spend a few weeks with Nance. Nance then began a childcare center in her home. One brother and sister, she raised for years.

Loving Momma was like loving a cactus in a coffee can.

"Two weeks to say hello and goodbye
She gave me this cactus, said 'It's kinda like me
It'll hurt you to hold it, but it blooms every spring." 

Life with Daddy was not easy, but she loved him so. Momma’s drug of choice was Television. She watched Television like a drunk consumes cheap whiskey.

I learned in my twenties; Momma kept a pack of cigarettes in her car. She used to consume those on drives when she was learning to love Daddy once more.

To accept that I am Momma’s child is to rejoice that I am Nance’s child too. I can have the best of two women and their world. To accept and celebrate the legacy left by two beautiful women who shared a family together.

Cactus in a Coffee Can

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