Thoughts for Leverage Woman Crush Wednesday
Leverage has gifted us with so many great female characters. Some of them we were lucky to have over multiple episodes (like Tara, or Maggie, or the Italian), some only needed one episode for us to fall in love with them (like Mikel, or Olivia, or Amy, or Cheryl; I could keep going but I’ll stop). But the woman I want to ramble about today wasn’t in a single episode, but still a character you just have to love: Alec’s Nana.
It’s such a shame we never got to see Nana. Everything we know is pieced together from what Hardison says about her, and the obvious influence her parenting had on him. We know she took young Alec in from fostercare, and that she had at least one other foster kid. We know she 'cussed like a sailor' but stood up for her kids and raised them right. Apart from that, everything is open to interpretation. So I guess to fill in the blanks, here are a couple of headcanons about her.
I think Nana was raised in the foster system just like Hardison. Not that I think that children from a good home can't grow up to become foster parents, but it takes a certain kind of drive to take in multiple troubled kids (you can't tell me Hardison wasn't a difficult kid, often being too smart for his own good and starting trouble out of boredom) and wanting to make sure no-one has as bad a childhood as you had is a powerful feeling.
Anyway, Nana grew up in fostercare, and when she'd finally made her own place in the world, the decision to adopt was quickly made. She always adopts the 'less adoptable' kids; the ones who already have a juvenile record, the kids with disabilities, the older kids, the ones who hang back because they've already given up hope of being adopted. She remembers the first time she realized the color of her skin made her somehow less desirable to prospective parents. She fights to make sure no child has to feel that way. She believes every child deserves a home, and it breaks her heart she can't do more.
The kids she does have, she raises right. She knows she can't change them, but she can teach them wrong from right and set them on a straighter path. She can give them confidence and hope that they so desperately need. They love her for it. She gives them boundaries and rules too. They love her for those just as much, and she forgives them when they don't always listen.
By the time Hardison leaves home, she's already getting old. Her health isn't what it used to be. But she doesn't give up on her mission to help as many kids as she can. Hardison was an only child for a while (his two older brothers left the house early), but by the time he leaves Nana has already adopted two more boys. She remembers how there were always more boys in the orphanages. But her sons will never feel less desired again. She makes sure her boys grow up to be good men. Maybe not always honest men, but good people nonetheless.
