Remembering My Grandmother On International Women's Day

LONG ISLAND, NY — March 8 marks International Women's Day, a day to celebrate women's achievement, fight bias and work toward equality, according to a site dedicated to the yearly event.

And while there have been many, many women who have paved the way with their light and courage, for me, the day is a time to remember my grandmother, who taught me before it was fashionable that women can do anything. Be anything. And do it all with so much love.

My grandmother didn't choose her lot. Left by her husband when her two children were small — she never shared the details of this heartbreak; I found out after she'd gone just how much silent pain she'd carried — she had no choice but to work, heading every day to her job at Hartford Insurance Company, where she was a secretary.

Her mother watched the children and my grandmother went to work. It wasn't easy for her to leave, she told me later. She'd leave a cheese sandwich out on the table for my Uncle Kenny, her youngest, to eat for lunch when he came home in the afternoon — and knowing that she couldn't be there, the sadness of that was etched on her face even so many years later, as she recalled the memory.

But she was a no-nonsense woman, my Nanny. She did what she had to do to feed her children, buy them new clothes at A&S with the charge card she was so proud of, to be able to afford the yearly vacation to the Jersey shore. And then, of course, there was Christmas. My grandmother's children always had a Christmas colored with magic because she got up every morning and took the R train to work.

There were things she loved about the job. Laughing with her best friend Bertha. The work itself, of course; she was proud of what she'd accomplished and the secretarial school she'd attended. And, too, she was always one for dressing up; she loved nice shoes and scarves and the costume jewelry she collected like so many gems in the soft pink box she kept on her dresser.

By the time I was born, my mother, herself a single mom, needed help, so my grandmother retired from her job, placing the gold Elgin watch she'd earned after so many years of devoted service safely into that jewelry box.

Just like that, Nanny switched gears, traded in her heels and hats for housedresses and cardigan sweaters. Without missing a beat, she began cooking warm, homey meals at night, meals I remember today and miss, even now. Always pot roast for the first day of school, because it was my favorite. Always the most wonderful turkey dinners for the holidays. Nanny left her professional persona behind and became my touchstone, the one who was there, always there, as my own working mother headed out every day to her job at a bank in lower Manhattan.

But still. There was a piece of my grandmother that always remembered how it had felt, to have to work to provide for her children. She taught me about the importance of a deeply instilled work ethic; and from the first, I wanted to work in an office, to be like my grandmother. She even gave me a a tiny desk in my room, where I played "office" with my own stapler and pens, notebooks and pencils.

At a time when not all children went to college — and when, with a single mom working full-time, it really wasn't in our family's budget — it was my grandmother who insisted that I apply, who was resolute that I should reach for dreams no one in our family had yet realized. She was adamant, and because of that ferocity, I did win two scholarships. I did go to college, and she was there applauding when I walked across the stage to receive my degree.

My Nanny, who had so little, taught me that I could dream big. She never stopped believing in me, never stopped loving me. She taught me what it meant not just to be a professional, but how to juggle a career with motherhood. No matter how tired she was, in those early days before she retired and had to come home after a long day and care for me, she always, always made time to read me Golden Books as I snuggled up close beside her.

My grandmother, she was everything to me. My light, my champion, my role model. She taught me that women can have it all.

And she also taught me that what she'd achieved was not without cost. On her last day, before the ambulance took her to the hospital for the last time, my sweet grandmother, riddled with dementia, was terrified, crying when I got to the apartment to help her.

"I'm going to be late for work," she said. "I'm going to lose my job. I can't lose my job."

In that moment, she was back in her past, a single, young mother, terrified of failing her children. And I realized, at that moment, just what emotional mountains she'd scaled, to be able to get dressed every day and to take that subway to her job, to leave her children so that she could give them everything.

In that moment, I saw my grandmother for what she truly was: A hero. My hero. And I've spent the rest of my life striving to make her proud.

On this International Women's Day, and every single day of my life, I thank her, for being the strongest and most loving woman on earth. For being the person who gave me the love I needed to soar, no matter where it was that I chose to fly.