Nana Quotes

“Mariam lay on the couch, hands tucked between her knees, watched the whirlpool of snow twisting and spinning outside the window. She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. *As a reminder of how people like us suffer,* she’d said. *How quietly we endure all that falls upon us.*”

“Stick two different people with two different sets of expectations under one rood and it ain’t always going to be shrimp and grits on Easter.”

“‘I got the sense that he was the kind of person who couldn’t hold anger for more than a few minutes, because it just wasn’t in him. It could never grow into resentment or bitterness, and I knew then that he was the kind of man who would be married forever. And I decided then and there that I should be the one to marry him.’”

“‘He was a wonderful man. And when a man is that special, you know it sooner than you think possible. You recognize it instinctively, and you’re certain that no matter what happens, there will never be another one like him.’”

“She turned her back and put the water on to boil. But not before I got a glimpse of her lips tightening. An ugly grimace. My sugar-and-spice grandmother with such a nasty look. I feel guilty. But I couldn’t ask, Nanna, do you and Mamma hate each other? How could I say such a thing?”

“ ‘I never have cared for red hair,’ Nana said fondly, twisting a strand of Posy’s round her finger. ‘Never could fancy it since I got scratched by a ginger cat as a child. But nicely kept it can be striking.’ ”