The Ties That Bind

If I look back in my journal and search for the word “grandma,” there’s only one person who appears. She’s neither of my biological grandmothers, who had both passed on by the time I was ten, but my husband’s grandmother—Janice. She first showed up in my life when I was seventeen. I was stricken with fear to meet Tommy’s “Houston grandparents,” this rags-to-riches, powerhouse couple who’d traveled the world, mastered the stock market, and given my then-boyfriend some of his best childhood memories. Before that first dinner at Texas Roadhouse, I’m pretty sure I googled, What’s a Dow Jones? in hopes of having something intelligent to say. But I shouldn’t have worried. Before I could butter my second roll, Grandma and I were chatting away about our favorite authors and books (Karen Kingsbury for her; Francine Rivers for me). Pretty quickly I learned that there was nothing pretentious about her. She was the ninth of ten kids, lost her dad at age two, and grew up dirt poor and happy in Nebraska. Her childhood, marriage, and family were inextricable from her identity, sturdy roots she returned to with esteem and affection again and again. She was grateful for all of […]

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