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roo-bastmoon · 1 year ago

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Remembering Nana today...

Interestingly enough, it was my 93-year-old grandmother who sort of led me to BTS. Today is the second anniversary of her passing, and my rambles about that are under the cut.

So, just to give you a visual: my Nana was a lot like Rose from the Golden Girls but, like, not in any way a ditz. She was a very practical Capricorn, but she looked and spoke a lot like Betty White from that show.

Nana practically raised me. I spent literally every weekend with her, from the day I was born until my parents divorced and we moved away when I was 13. Every Friday, my folks would drop me off at her apartment, and she'd make me homemade mac and cheese for dinner and vanilla ice cream for dessert (I did NOT like to try new things). Then we'd watch Full House, Perfect Strangers, Golden Girls, and Empty Nest on TGIF. After that, it would be bath time and bed.

Fun side note: I was an extremely independent and stubborn only child. So I always insisted on bathing myself. Not wanting me to drown on her watch, Nana would sit in the bathroom with me and read me poetry while I played with my Tub Town toys. But the poetry would always be the most macabre stuff--like The Spider and the Fly, or The Wreck of the Hesperus. I am not saying I was scarred for life by this, but I'm also not saying I'm normal, either.

Anyway, those were our Friday nights. On Saturdays we'd get up at the crack of dawn to go flea marketing with her two younger sisters. She would give me $1 to spend on my "trashy treasures" -- but it was the 80s, so I could make it stretch. After that, we'd all go to a buffet lunch. Then she'd take me in the afternoons to the local library, where I would pick my books for the week.

Another side note: My parents were not big on buying toys, but I could have any books I wanted. As a young kid, I used to take a flashlight and hide in the bathtub at night so I could read past bedtime. I figured I was being super sneaky because they couldn't see the light coming from that room. But we lived in a tiny house with only one bathroom, so of COURSE they knew. Mom told me years later that they thought it was funny I was being rebellious by secretly reading YA novels in the bathroom when I was in elementary school. Nana, of course, let me stay up as late as I wanted to read. I digress.

As the years passed, even when I went out of state and the country for school, or moved across America to take jobs, Nana and I emailed every day, called once a week, kept in constant touch. When I moved back to my home state 13 years ago, I sort of became her caregiver and weekend companion.

This time it was my turn on the weekends to make her food, take her shopping, drive her around, get her books from the bookmobile. She raised me, and then for 10 years, I took care of her.

I loved my Nana. She was funny and soft-hearted and well read, but she grew up *dirt poor* and never got to see the world except through books and the TV, so she was always very humble and a bit shy. She loved me so much--she was the only person in the world who would listen to me drivel on about anything, and still be interested.

At 93-years-old, she died of a sudden heart attack on August 30, 2021. Emergency personnel were with her in her apartment, so she wasn't alone or in pain very long, but I couldn't get to her fast enough to say goodbye. Mom and I identified her later, at the hospital.

I am grateful she had a long life, and didn't suffer, and wasn't alone. But my family is very, very small. Just Nana and Mom and me. And after the whirlwind of taking care of her funeral and packing up her apartment and donating everything, suddenly there was just all this free time--these empty hours I usually filled taking care of Nana.

I just was so lost.

I started trying to read, or quilt, or watch movies. I got into some K dramas for a bit. Nothing really interested me. Then I started watching dance compilations on YouTube before bed.

And one snowy December night, I found a Steezy video where Brian Puspos was reviewing Jimin's dance style. I had no idea what it was. It was like this weird impulse--as if someone moved my finger to hover over and click that video...

You cannot imagine how every nerve-ending woke up. My brain suddenly came online. (I was a semi-pro ballet dancer as a kid, and I knew the absolute second I saw Jimin that he was a master who trained relentlessly--nobody had to point it out to me.)

For the first time in months, I FELT something other than grief.

I watched every single video of him I could. I had no idea who BTS were, didn't know anything about Kpop. But eventually I found more videos, I listened to their songs, and later I discovered Jikook, and I made online accounts and I watched RUN episodes, and I got to go see Yoongi as my first-ever concert, and now I'm making my way through In the Soop and Bon Voyage.

In fact, pretty much every day since I discovered Jimin, I've been thinking about, learning about, and trying to support Jimin and the people Jimin loves.

Jimin and BTS got me through the grief at losing the person I loved most in the world. They saw me through uterine cancer, and the surgeries, and mourning the fact that I can never be a bio mom now. They got me through the medical tests and the chronic fatigue and pain I've had for the last 4 months.

I really love our boys. I may not understand or love everything about them or their company or their industry, but loving someone doesn't mean thinking of them as demi-gods; it means being loyal even as they grow past any flaws.

To be honest, I feel like I owe Jimin my life, in a way. I was in a really, really dark place a year and a half ago. Jimin was the only joy, the only reason to keep going (besides my mom and kitties, of course).

Now I own every digital release BTS has put out--the whole discography, even the skits. I try to vote on all the apps whenever I can, and stream on premium family bundle accounts for Spotify, YouTube, and Pandora; I also do free trials for Tidal and Qobuz. II've never done any of this stuff before, never been a fan of any musicians, but I really, truly do try to return the favor.

It's a bit hyperbolic to say they "saved me" because lots of people cope with grief and illness and loneliness and it doesn't mean they just throw in the towel.

But BTS helped me stop surviving, and made me want to really live.

Plus, even when I'm too sick to go out or call up my friends, I can always get on my phone and come here, to chat with my fandom friends. I don't know most of their real names or faces or anything about their real lives, but we all love BTS; we all talk about and work together for BTS.

Nana would have loved that. (She also would have let me talk her ear off every day about Jimin and Jikook and the Tannies because that was her love language.)

Is BTS a replacement for real, genuine human interaction? No. Of course not. It is, at the end of the day, a band. Not a life.

But it also feels like getting to know 7 people I'd be honored to be friends with, if we ever met. People I want to support so they can achieve all their dreams--because they always pay it forward, too.

I sometimes wonder if Nana guided my hand to click on that video that day. Maybe she was looking down at me and thought "Ah, this will be good for her. This will be healing."

Probably not, but still, I'd like to think that. I'd like to think it was Nana who led me to the Magic Shop.

I miss her. I love her. I still can hear her voice in my head every day.

But I'm gonna be okay. (The future's gonna be okay.)

There's still so much to look forward to and work to be done. Fighting!

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