On Being a Grandmother

“We live in a culture that has lost its memory. Very little in the specific shapes and traditions of our grandparents’ pasts instructs us how to live today, or tells us who we are or what demands will be made on us as members of society.”

Gretel Ehrlich

The Solace of Open Spaces

Last Thursday, Tom and I traveled to that enormous land called Texas to spend time with our eldest daughter and son-in-law, and to be of whatever help we could be over the weekend. Tom busied himself with numerous needed repairs and projects around the house, and enjoyed several short walks to the home improvement store. My daughter and I visited a few nurseries and came home with the beginnings of a salsa garden: tomatoes, chilies, cilantro, and peppers. Strawberries and flowers also found their way into our little boxes, and we spent a lovely afternoon in the soil planting hope. I left for home on Monday, satisfied that perhaps the fingerprints we left were a blessing.

Also. We are going to be grandparents. I am going to be a grandmother. I keep saying this to myself, trying it on. It’s not a bad fit, methinks; it’s just new. Folks want to know what I’m going to be called. How does one name oneself?

My only experience with grandmothers are the two very different women I had in very short stints in my life: one, an American who grew up during the Depression and would only rarely talk of her upbringing on the edges of a history that took persistent prodding and extremely careful listening. The other, a Greek woman who lived deep in the Peloponnesian mountains (which took arduous hours of driving steep and windy and narrow mountain gravel roads), with whom language barriers left conversations unspoken. But I still remember as a young girl always–always–the delight in these women’s eyes when they saw me and how they appreciated my company. It was always easy for me to be with either of them.

Baking bread at the outdoor oven with my Yia Yia and little brother.

Well, I don’t live in remote mountains (yet) and I didn’t have a difficult childhood (thankfully). Also, neither of them were still raising their own children when I showed up, so that is also different. I still have seven children at home. I don’t have a rich history from either woman to draw from, whether it be traditions or beliefs or even what their own deep thoughts and dreams were. That, to me, is a very real and sorry American sort of individualism, but there we are. What I can do in our current life is continue to plant seeds of love wherever my grandchildren are, and hope to have as beautiful of a memory in their hearts when I, too, am gone. God may be gracious and allow those humble offerings to be enough, no matter where they all end up living.

Blessings,