What does it mean to be a grandmother?
Inquiring minds want to know
A note about last week’s post
First, before we dive into this week’s topic, I want to suggest an excellent piece that follows up on these lines my grandmother wrote:
There is only so much land. Nothing grows on concrete. Pollution can fill up the air we breathe and keep us inside our air-conditioned homes and workplaces. But, is that what we want for our future, the future of our children and grandchildren?
I am sure all of you have been following the devastation in Maui and wondering how we got here and how you can help. Well, Emily Atkin’s Heated Substack provides insight into aspects of the disaster you may not read about anywhere else, including the question of whether such catastrophes are truly “natural” (scare quotes intentional). Anyway, you can read for yourself here:
Speaking of grandchildren…
This Substack has not existed long enough for anyone to notice that until now, I had been putting out a new installment every Saturday, but I have. Until now, that is. Yesterday I had my hands full in the best possible way, with a visit from my eldest daughter and only grandchild. When some of the most important people in your life show up, you drop everything and make time for them. I did not do that enough when my kids were young, but one benefit of grandparenthood seems to be you get a second chance at offering your youngest relatives and the world’s future ancestors the attention they deserve. And so it was that I ate blueberry donuts and watched Miss Rachel and went to the waterpark and cooked steak dinner (and laughed to myself when he flung a copy of one of the lit mags that had rejected my work like a poorly aimed frisbee).
This brings me to a question that has haunted me since my first-and-so-far-only grandchild was born almost two years ago. People often ask me what it feels like to be a grandmother. I never know how to respond. I suspect it will bother them if I answer with a question of my own—What’s it supposed to feel like?—so I don’t. (Another benefit of getting older has been learning to squelch a fair number of things that pop up into my unruly brain before the neural circuit completes and puts them out in the world where I can’t unsay them.)
Here’s the thing. I know the right answer is something along the lines of it’s amazing or I love it or the hyperbolic it’s the best feeling in the world, and all of that is true, every word of it and then some. But none of that get at the heart of the thing itself, to watching a toddler feed bits of donut to your dog or spinning him around in the water as he laughs and laughs and laughs. As a writer, I want to put the right words, the best words to all experience, but there are moments when life just isn’t having that.
[SIDE NOTE: some of my frustration may be due to the work I am doing with shimmers and shards in Jeannine Ouellette’s Essay in 12 Steps challenge, which I cannot recommend highly enough. It is changing the way I approach the world, from writing to my meditation practice to Nino’s and my morning walks. I feel like I should have collected more shimmers during this visit, but then again, I was living the thing itself and if I’m following my own advice, that matters too. A lot.]
Anyway, enough about me. Let’s see what Ruth has to say about grandmotherhood. (Spell check accepts grandparenthood but not grand motherhood? Overruled, spell check. Overruled.) She wrote more than one “Rural Reflection” on the topic; for reasons partly arbitrary and partly emotional, I have selected the one she wrote about Mother’s Day 1993, the day I graduated college.
On this Mother’s Day, my reflections take me to my life as “Grandma Ruth.” I was initiated rather early into grandparenting. As a result, I have the luxury of having grandchildren who have children of their own, as well as having some grandchildren much younger. I also have the added luxury that none of them—grandchildren and “greats”—live too far from me.
I don’t live surrounded by these children and grandchildren as a senior dowager smiling benignly at their games and listening to their chatter. They all, from the married ones to the very youngest, have lives of their own—lives I can share vicariously with recitations of activities that begin with an excited “Grandma Ruth.” But I am there in person to share many of the important events in their lives. I have attended graduations from a kindergartner’s passage into 1st grade to my granddaughter’s graduation, today, from Nazareth College.
I have reveled in being “Grandmother of the Bride” at weddings. I cannot be kept away when a new grandchild is born. Once a nurse tried to restrain me from barging into the maternity ward. Pulling myself up to all of my 5 feet 2 inches, I announced, “I am her grandmother,” and went on in to meet the newest member of my very large family. Being a grandmother has also brought sorrow as when a beloved granddaughter died.
[…]
As “Grandma Ruth” I have played games and games with hardly ever a victory. It began years ago with dominoes and now it is checkers. I still lose consistently, but enjoy the competition. I play “Go Fish” with the same enthusiasm as I do Euchre and Rummy. I have worked my routes on board games, beginning with “Chutes and Ladders” and “Sorry” and on to “Monopoly.”
Being “Grandma Ruth” keeps me young in spirit if not in body. The times I have spent “children-sitting” are precious to me. I have overseen feeding the rabbits and gathering the eggs—all on a small scale but very important to this little girls. I have been up early, but not quite early enough to be ahead of a 2-year-old bent on getting her breakfast. I have read stories and watched countless videos with the plot revealed excitedly by the child who is hearing or seeing the story for the “umpteenth time,” but enjoying it. All of these and more have been special occasions for me, especially since the cliche is true: “They go home, or you do.”
Nothing can match the excitement of a little girl calling as she leaves, “Need a kiss, Grandma,” or the loving concern of a young grandson asking, “Is there anything I can get for you, Grandma?”
On this Mother’s Day 1993, my thanks are to my three sons, who gave me one of the best gifts of all time—the opportunity to be “Grandma Ruth.”
A few thoughts, then some pictures
Apparently “grandparenting” is not a word either. Substack’s spell check and I are going to have to have a talk. (FWIW it also doesn’t think Substack is a word, so there is that.)
It is generous of her to say we all live close, knowing as she did that I would be moving to Indiana at the end of the summer. That move helped give me a life I love, but it has not been without a certain amount of regret and homesickness.
All the yes! to refusing the role of “senior dowager.”
I had both of my grandmothers and my maternal grandfather at my college graduation. I’ve been in this profession long enough to finally understand just what a gift that was.
Ruth and my grandfather on my mom’s side, Jay, both attended my wedding. My grandfather died just weeks later from a recently diagnosed aggressive brain tumor. The bittersweetness of that memory has far outlasted the marriage.
I was there for the birth of my grandson. It’s not my story to share other than to say it was unforgettable in every way. I am so grateful my daughter trusted me to be there.
I remember when my cousin passed from cancer, and now that line guts me on a whole new level. I simply cannot imagine. In fact, while I was looking for photos to include this post, I found pictures from a car accident one of my kids was in. That was bad enough. I cannot push the thought experiment any further.
On a much lighter note, Euchre and Monopoly continue to be something only slightly less than blood sports in our family. Play with us at your peril.
“Young in spirit, if not in body.” Preach, Grandma Ruth. Did you know there are whole muscle groups just under the armpits that you will activate if you play in the water with a toddler for any length of time?
On a related note, I too am learning it is quite difficult to get to the kitchen ahead of a “2-year-old bent on breakfast!”
The remainder of her column, well, those are joys that I will come to me later. For now, I can only thank my eldest daughter the way Ruth thanked her three sons.
Clockwise from top left: Ruth and me, August 1972 / Ruth and her three boys, n.d. / Grandma Ruth, Mom, me, and Grandma Florence, Graduation/Mother’s Day 1993 / Mom, my grandson, my daughter, and me, Thanksgiving 2022. NB: I am following Ruth’s example in omitting names for family members still living in the name of allowing them at least minimal privacy. After all, they didn’t ask to be related to a writer!
Thank you for sharing, Laura. I am grandmother to two young teenage boys and, like you, I often get that question: "What is it really like to be a grandmother?". As you said, it's difficult to get to the heart of the answer. I loved your comment that you were primarily concerned with "living the thing itself," which is what matters most and which also seems to have been Grandma Ruth's philosophy. I think you reached the heart of the answer with those wise words. Beautiful writing! Thank you again.