Retrospective: Hot Fuzz/My grandma Marilyn

My grandmother Marilyn died on June 26, but I only learned about her death this week. I was estranged from my birth family, as the slowness of the news should indicate, so I hadn't seen or spoken to Grandma in more than six years. But when I got the news near the end of my shift, I froze for a solid minute. I'm not sure every grandparent's death would have hit me that hard — I think only Grandma would have that effect on me. I don't think she would have liked that — she would probably have said something like "oh, for God's sake, get over it."

Grandma Marilyn was probably the biological relative who influenced me the most. She was a prodigious musician, a terrific writer, an inveterate grouch with less patience than a jackrabbit on crack, and a master of deadpan. I think a talent for writing is at least somewhat genetic, and I believe that because of Grandma.

She was also a poor mother, often racist, and prone to saying hurtful things. Grandma was a strong Midwestern woman whose mother rescued her and her siblings from an abusive father — and she undoubtedly got some bitterness from that. But her grandchildren were her world. And she refused to stop seeing the beauty in people. She was unbelievably accomplished — a registered nurse whose energy was tragically zapped by a bout with cancer in the last few decades of her life. But that energy would return whenever she watched Doc Martin — she diagnosed each character before Martin Clunes did.

That doesn't mean she lost her complete exasperation. One time we met up in Ohio for a family reunion, and I asked Grandma if there was any water in the house. Grandma gave me the world's biggest eyeroll and said "no, fresh out of water." That sentence has become a catchphrase for Janet and myself. She was unbelievably funny, and had a great sense of humor. She loved British comedy, another trait I inherited from her. When she was pushing 80, I showed her Hot Fuzz. We got to the scene where Simon Pegg kicks an elderly woman in the face, and Grandma said "oh my god," laughing harder than I've ever seen. I loved her so much in that moment.