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Storytime, COVID-style

A drama in one act

The scene

 Location No. 1:  A 7-year-old girl’s bedroom at about 7:45 p.m.  The room is captured in the screen camera’s eye and beamed over the ether to another screen miles away, via the technology that is re-defining communication and relationships in the era of COVID.  Child is leaning back against a rumpled mass of pillows, facing the camera, and the lovely pink flowered coverlet is only visible in one tiny triangle in lower left. She is, at least as the scene opens, under a tangle of various layers of covers, accompanied by a large purple bunny squeezed under her left arm, only one, long narrow flop-ear exposed, dangling on top of the covers like a tie adorning a dress shirt.   Presumably there is a white dog sharing the bed; only his foot is visible, lower right.

 Location No. 2, simultaneously shown:   The home office of this child’s grandmother.  A stack of children’s books stands at the ready on the work table next to her laptop.  Lighting has been carefully arranged to illuminate the pages of the books she will hold up to the camera, but not too bright, because it is bedtime, after all.

 The characters

  • Sis, the aforementioned 7-year-old girl, who has eagerly accepted her grandmother’s offer to read her a bedtime story via FaceTime.
  • Buddy, her 9-year-old brother. Possibly thinks this activity is beneath his age, having largely outgrown his taste for little kids’ books. He is too kindly to say so in front of his grandmother or sister.
  • The mother of these children, who plays a role in tech support but does not appear.
  • The grandmother of these children, aka G-ma, or Evie, who routinely would never refer to herself as a desperate woman.  And yet, she is missing these children so fiercely that she wants to give this strange scenario a legitimate shot.
  • A patient, quiet, white and black terrier mix dog named Sam, who never gets far from the children.
  • A frenetic but supremely devoted brindle terrier mix named Grace with the delicate presence of an offensive lineman protecting the blind side in overtime of the Super Bowl.

The scene opens as FaceTime connects and G-ma’s face lights up at the sight of the child.  Her brother is not visible.

G-ma (brightly):  Hi, precious!  I’m SO glad to see you.  Let’s pick out a book to read.

(G-ma holds up a couple of options to the camera. The child is squirming, possibly in anticipation, possibly impatience, possibly both. She sits forward in affirmation and points at the screen when it shows her the cover of the classic Where the Wild Things Are.)

G-ma continues:  This one?  Great.  Let’s get started.  Where’s your brother?  Does he want to hear this?  Buddy, are you there?  (Hoping to involve both, she speaks to the child she can’t see.). Do you like this story, too?

(A second face appears on screen, extreme close-up but completely sideways, visible only from the eyeballs up.)

Buddy (non-committal but polite tone):  Yeah, but I’ve read it multitudes of times already.

G-ma (flummoxed by this mastery of vocabulary from the sideways, partial face):  Did you say multitudes?  Is that what you said?

Buddy:  Yeah!  Multitudes.  But it’s OK.  You can read it to Sis.  (He drops back onto the pillow next to his sister, close enough to be about half visible, then noticeably hoists his own book, his face disappearing behind it.)

Sis (pushing her brother farther away from her on the bed, to gain space and reject his response):  Go! Evie, read!

(G-ma begins the old favorite story, turning the pages slowly, twisting in various contortions, attempting to see, while reading, if the pages are visible to the watching child. Striving to keep her audience on the hook, she displays the page where the protagonist is sent to his room for misbehavior)

G-ma :  Can you see this?  Look at him making that face.  What do you think he’s mad at?

Buddy (without lowering his own book, apparently watching over the top of it):  He’s mad because…

Sis (shoving him again and interrupting):  Stop!  You aren’t even reading with us.  Go on, Evie. (She turns her back to her brother, propelling herself hard enough to dislodge the position of the laptop, which is now displaying the tranquil bed scene at a 45-degree angle.)

G-ma (uncertain whether to just tilt her own head or request tech support):  You knocked the laptop, sweetie.  Straighten it back up so I don’t get dizzy looking at you.

Sis:  Oh, sorry!  (She leans forward to correct the issue but suddenly vanishes, while the screen is filled by the torso of the amber-and-black brindle dog, who has leapt onto the bed and into the action.).

Sis, Buddy, and their mother (simultaneously, shouting out of view):  GRACE!  GET OFF THE BED!

(Pause.  Scrambled audio.  G-ma waits, uncertain whether to proceed, thinking this has not gone well.  Perhaps it’s too much for the kids to focus in this scenario.  They are too young/not interested/just humoring me.  Maybe this was more about me, G-ma wonders regretfully.  Meanwhile, brindle torso flashes on past and ejects itself out of sight.  Grandchildren again visible on camera.  Action resumes.  Soon, G-ma announces the conclusion is nigh.)

G-ma:  Almost done here, guys.  Here’s our last page.

Sis (interrupting, directs question to her mother, off camera):  Mom, can we do this again?  Cause I really like it.

Mother (off camera):  Sure, if Evie wants to.

(G-ma reads last page, closes the book.)

G-ma (smiling fondly into camera):  Great!  That was fun.  I love…

Buddy (leaning face sideways into view again, before his grandmother can finish):  Thanks! Bye!

(Screen abruptly goes dark.  In the ensuing silence, G-ma stares for a second at the black space where the children just were, and then at the cover of the book.  She wonders if anything every goes the way it is so brilliantly shown in the grandparenting magazines, with their articles on “10 Ways to Stay Close to Grandkids During COVID.”  She doubts it. But knowing she got one vote in favor, she decides to declare victory as she switches off the light.)

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It’s Tea Time

The accomplished hostess knows this fundamental truth of entertaining:  Good parties tend to grow.

A little gathering at my place on a recent weekend morning started with just two guests, with my granddaughter Sis as hostess and me hovering in attendance nearby as kitchen staff.

“Evie, can we get out the tea set?” she had asked, beaming a little jolt of joy into my weary heart that morning.  The tea set is a relic from my parents’ time at the American naval base in the Philippine Islands in the 1950s, an acquisition on a side trip to Hong Kong in those very different post-war times.

My granddaughter was a newborn when my mother downsized to smaller quarters and so many treasures went on to new destinations.  I took the lovely teapot with its enchanting curved spout and the wafer-thin, gold-flowered cups and plates and stuck them in a drawer, wondering if they might appeal to her on some future lazy afternoon.  On a recent day when we needed, shall we say, to redirect her focus, I had unwrapped them and conveyed them as hers, to remain for now in my care. “We’ll get them out soon and have a real tea party,” I offered, unsure if she even knew what that was.

That day was here.

As I reached for the location at the no-kids elevation where I stored the 60-year-old china, she installed the first two guests in their places at the coffee table, on a little bench and in a child’s rocker.  The long, slender stuffed monkey displayed manners questionable for a tea party, his long arms flung behind him wildly as if on a bender, but I let it go.  The raggedy, worn lop-eared bunny who faced him across the table displayed a rather detached expression for a party guest, but I let that go, too.

Shall I make some real tea? I offered, having saved a caffeine-free variety with a hint of cocoa in it for the children, and she answered, “Oh, yes, everyone wants tea.”  I snapped to it in the kitchen, digging out a few of my grandmother’s shiny sterling teaspoons to add to the place settings.  As I worked, more guests arrived. Next came a blue Kentucky Wildcat beanbag, who was never constructed for sitting up, a dark brown squirrel who held his ground rather nicely, another bear, and finally, a striped fish relic of a long-ago Disney movie.  Fish needed an extra pillow to swim level with his teacup.  Meanwhile, the real dog patrolled the perimeter nervously, certain this unauthorized activity required careful monitoring and watching me for instructions.

I held my breath as Sis, at her request, carefully poured the hot brew for each guest into the tiny cups. Not a drop spilled, reminding me again how trust fosters growth.  With more focus on the spirit of the occasion than prudent nutritional practices for six-year-olds, I inquired if the guests preferred honey or sugar for their tea.  What a rookie mistake; Sis is never one to pass up promising options.  “They might want both,” she answered. I paused briefly over my error, then decided, why stop now?

Older Brother Buddy disdained this little charade at first, but as tea was poured and the gathering grew, he could not bear the sidelines.  He came forward with a tiny rubber creature of undetermined species (possibly a video game character?) that was liberated from its small plastic case in time to claim a seat at the table.  “He’s too small to drink from a cup,” Buddy worried about his little pal, about 1.5 inches long.  Could he drink from a spoon? I asked.  This was satisfactory, and soon the miniature creature was perched on a placemat in front of a silver spoon containing just a few drops of the amber liquid. The hostess and her brother sipped over-sweetened tea from different cups and spoons on their guests’ behalf, chatted sociably, and soon the little event wound to a conclusion.

My 89-year-old mother loves knowing when others enjoy her vintage things, so it was fun to tell her the tea-party story soon after.  I shared photos showing the table set with her china, amusing her great-grandchildren more than half a century after she first acquired the tiny, gold-trimmed little pieces. She shook her head, amazed.  “I didn’t know little girls still cared about those things,” she said, a bit wistfully.  Within a few short days, there would be no immediate chances to reminisce with Mom over family photos, as her residence was closed indefinitely to visitors while pandemic rages on.

With such abrupt swiftness, our world has spun into a dark and unpredictable alternative reality in recent weeks.  Everyone seems frightened and unbearably stressed.  With each new dawn, the news continues to worsen, and on some days, hope may elude us.

And yet we press on.  In her brilliant essay collection Late Migrations, author Margaret Renkl explores the intimacies of acute grief, but says that human beings are creatures who are built for joy. We look around, and we see that in defiance of global tragedy, spring still came, and the cherry trees have gracefully bowed down under the weight of their opalescent pink offerings.  Golden daffodils stand forth in triumph to herald the coming of Easter.  Musicians pour out their gifts before cameras instead of crowds, because deep in their marrow they know how music transcends, never more than in the hardest of times.  Birds are boisterously caroling their mating and nesting plans, driving indoor cats mad with frustration through windows everywhere.  From balconies across the ancient cities of Europe, strangers sing opera to the open air and applaud the heroism of healthcare workers who, if they are among the fortunate, they will never encounter.

And little kids still like tea parties.

 

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Hear the Birdie?

If there are many things that lift the heart faster than making a child laugh, I can’t name them. The other day I tried a little trick with the grandkids with a bit of an ulterior motive, and it got a better laugh than I expected.

Hey, Buddy, I said casually, do you hear the birds chirping?  Sitting across from me at the table and drawing while I was looking at a catalogue, he turned to look out the window.  I tugged quickly on my right ear, fast enough that he didn’t see the motion, which generated a tiny, bird-like squeak.

He spun back around toward me, searching my face for clues.  “I don’t see a bird out there,” he said.  Look again, I responded, pointing out the window.  As he did, I tugged on the ear again, repeating the little chirp.  Almost nine years old and nobody’s fool, my grandson examined my expression again, analyzing the prank he smelled.  “You’re making that noise,” he conjectured.  “How did you do that?”

Oh, it’s a special bird-chirping magic trick, I began, and then relented under his analytical gaze. Actually, it’s my hearing aid. The one on this side makes a little feedback sound if you adjust the position of the tip.  Sounds like a birdie, doesn’t it?

“It does!” he agreed, laughing.  “That’s pretty cool.”  Later, I demonstrated for his younger sister, with similar success.

Ever since my two grandchildren grew old enough to converse, I have worried that my severe hearing loss would strain the fabric of our relationship.  Young children are generally hard to understand for most adults, even for those with normal hearing.  For those of us who live daily with significant hearing impairments, it can be darn near impossible. As it happens, that encompasses a very large group of people.

According to the National Institute on Deafness, an arm of the National Institutes of Health, one in eight people in this country aged 12 or older has hearing loss in both ears—that’s 13 percent of the population, a whopping 30 million people.  For those of us in grandparent age-range, the rate of disabling loss nearly doubles to 25 percent of individuals past 64, and it rises to a full HALF of senior adults age 75 and older.  Another national research institution ranks age-related hearing loss as the fifth-highest debilitating condition in the world, behind only low-back pain, migraine, major depression, and diabetes.  That’s a whole, whole lot of people who might be in line with us at the grocery store or down the aisle at the movies or waiting patiently in the early voting line who may struggle to understand any audio cues or words at any given time.

Family history, as in so many things, may also dictate the course of hearing disability.  We have a very strong family pattern for hearing loss on my father’s side of the family, beginning much younger than average.  In an effort to resist career setbacks or disrupted relationships, I acquired my first aids long before I was 50.  As with most technology in the digital age, aids are getting better all the time, with capabilities that adjust for infinite variations in sound. Still, as with other disabilities, it is a constant challenge to maneuver daily life.

Struggles range from the tiny to the enormous.  Aids cannot compensate for the direction of sound, so if someone turns from you on a noisy street, their words blow away in the wind.  Whispering in the movie theatre?  Forget it. Background music at your friend’s dinner party?  Torture, unless you prefer to dodge the conversation.  That acclaimed expert speaker you went to hear, when you bought that expensive ticket and queued up early for a good seat—that presentation was completely lost, an experience equivalent to watching TV with the sound off. The speaker said, “Can everyone hear me?” And when no one said no, he walked away from the microphone because he didn’t like to use it.

Some, like my father in his later years, largely give up in group situations rather than asking people to repeat and fearing that’s a burden to others.  Even the kindly friends and family members who are aware cannot possibly catalogue and accommodate for all the varying conditions that may isolate a hearing-impaired person from his surroundings. Decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act created requirements for physical access and other important accommodations, hearing loss—as distinguished from deafness—is the secret disability. My own theory is simple:  It’s because it is invisible.  Some days, it is like walking around inside a glass capsule that defines your freedoms but is unseen by everyone you meet.

So, how to deal with children that you love?  Their little voices and unconstructed sentences and funny stories are so precious to the ears and heart. Some days I have shivered with anxiety, worrying these young souls who light up my universe like moonbeams will find my presence irritating, my understanding incomplete or bizarrely twisted, my conversation useless.

For the fundamentals of daily operation, there is gentle coaching.  Turn toward me so I can hear you, I coax, as patiently as I can, over and over.  I really want to hear you, I sometimes add, hoping it helps, because what you say is important to me.  Yes, those words you see on the TV screen are supposed to be there.  They are called “captions”, and they show what the speaker is saying, in case I can’t hear it fully.  On and on it goes.  Hoping that what is routine becomes easier to accept, and not so different or awkward, I openly share the mechanics of the “personal audio system.” I show them how the aids fit into the ear, explaining how I can adjust it by touching a button lightly on the back of the tiny mechanism.

Only once have I received a snarky response from one of the children to my request to repeat something. Maybe because it was so hurtful, maybe because I was tired and out of steam, I elected to meet this full-on.

Repeating yourself may be frustrating sometimes, I say bluntly, right into my grandson’s wary face. But you know my ears don’t work well, that I can’t hear what you guys can hear, and that’s very hard for me.  So, the kind thing to do is help me, not make fun of my problem. Don’t ever let me hear you joke about people whose bodies function differently than yours.  Would you say something like that to a person in a wheelchair, be mean to them because they couldn’t go up the steps?  Of course not.  I know you wouldn’t.  This is no different.  Do you understand?

This rant yielded a remorseful nod, which I took as an apology, and in turn I delivered a hug to seal our peace treaty.  Children so seldom intend to be unkind, but sometimes they need help seeing the nuances of reality.

I hope the coaxing and straight talk help in the long run, but the humor may leave the best imprint in the little hearts.  The other morning, I was fixing breakfast, and the children were hungry.  Sis likes to hover around and help in the kitchen, and suddenly I had to halt the preparations when the battery died in my right hearing aid.  Feeling pressed for time and foolishly wrestling the tiny battery into its miniature compartment without my glasses, I forced feedback out of the aid unintentionally a couple of times before getting the battery in place.  When accidentally prolonged, the feedback is more of a squeal than a chirp, and it made me cringe. Meanwhile, I mumbled to Sis that the food would be ready soon.  Watching intently, she heard the familiar noise, but I didn’t look up when she first commented.

“It’s a nice noise, really, you know.”  What is? I asked, still on task and distracted.

“Birdsongs.  They’re pleasant sounds, you know, I like them.” This last is attached to a persuasive smile and a little shrug.

Never in a million years would I have risked embarrassing her by probing for the double meaning I fervently hoped was there, even if unintentionally.  I had to settle for a big smack of a kiss on her forehead and getting on with breakfast.

 

 

 

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Old Rabbit, Harry, and Me

It’s a surprisingly moving cinematic moment, when delivered as beautifully as this one is, to see an older man connect to a younger one by asking about his favorite stuffed toy from childhood.  The older man is the legendary Fred Rogers, played by Tom Hanks in the hit movie It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Mr. Rogers is trying, in his quiet, measured manner, to befriend a cynical young journalist named Tom, played by actor Matthew Rhys.  Tom has been assigned, over his angry objections, to write a short magazine profile on Mr. Rogers as an American hero. He is bitterly skeptical that this red-sweater-wearing star of children’s television should be anyone’s hero, anything like the character on the screen, so kind, so gentle, so beloved by so many.

Waving a worn, familiar puppet, a regular character on the show, Mr. Rogers responds to one of Tom’s interview questions with one of his own.  “Did you have a special friend like this when you were a child, Tom?”  Yes, the annoyed writer responds, testily. Now can we get back to the interview?

“What was his name, Tom?” Mr. Rogers persists.  Rabbit, answers Tom.  Suddenly he pauses, struggling with surprise at the catch in his voice when he adds, “Actually, it was Old Rabbit.”

It was one of the quietest moments in the theater during this heartwarmng film.  Nearly every adult present surely was thrown back through misty memory to the warm days of childhood, remembering, maybe even longing for, that most special animal.  The particular one that is so tightly wound to the heart of so many young children.

Everyone except for me. Instead, I was thinking about the time just a few years back when my mom sent me an ape.

Seven or eight years ago—when I was in my fifties, mind you—I had some minor surgery.  It was nothing unusual, but I dreaded it, and I told Mom as much a few days before the procedure.  “You’ll do fine,” she assured me, “and we’ll check on you.”  My sister, a registered nurse, accompanied me to the procedure and hung around a day or two to make sure I was following instructions from the doctor. The next day, the mailman brought a little package showing my parent’s return address.  This produced a smile from the patient.  Ripping into the box, I thought: Chocolate, to sweeten the long post-op hours?  One of my mother’s baubles, to hand down, maybe?

It was a small stuffed ape, a chimpanzee, I guess.  About six or eight inches high, he commands a permanent seated position, his fat, velvety feet pointed ever upward. The plump hands at the end of his long arms feature Velcro strips in the palms, in case you want to walk around with him hugging your wrist, like a designer purse.  Most intriguing of all, his eyes are fixed in a sideways glare that is part surprise, part wariness, and part sarcasm, like he has just rolled them upward at your lame joke.

My sister and I looked at each other, puzzled. My mother’s gift selections have been at times renowned in the family for, shall we call it, creativity.  Still, this was a rather surprising selection for a post-op patient. What on earth?  I said, and my sister just shrugged, unsurprised.  I named him Harry, after my mother’s father, an uncle of the same name, and also because he’s a…well, you get the idea.

Hey, Mom, thanks for the little ape, I chirped the next time she called to check in.  What, um, what made you think to send me this?  “Oh, I just thought he was cute,” she said cheerfully. “Now, when do you get your stitches out?”

It was borne in on me long ago that it would be wise to emulate my mother’s habit of not over-thinking things, so I moved on along to her destinations for the conversation.  Harry soon took up residence on my bed, about four decades after a stuffed animal had last been found there.  He perches in front of the fancy pillow shams, directly facing the corner spot where the cat spends about half her life dozing.  (If she is unsettled by the presence of an ape nearby, she has never mentioned it.)  Sometimes Harry serves as an excellent prop for an open book, his wide feet pointed at just the right angle to boost up the lower edge of the cover.  My grandkids occasionally relocate Harry to the guest room for the night; he serves as an excellent stand-in if they are sleeping over and forgot their own favorite friend.  And if I am fully forthcoming about Harry’s occupation here, I must admit he has been tear-soaked through more than one episode of deep grief, when my sister died a couple of years after that surgery, my father soon after, and my beloved old dog more recently.

My grandkids have never questioned why their grandmother would have a small stuffed ape on her bed and would share him as needed.  Instinct probably tells them what special grownups like Mr. Rogers and my mother also know—that if we are lucky, and open to it, we let the lovelights of childhood continue to illuminate adult hearts.  The tender desires of the very young—for love, comfort, simplicity, friendship, self-respect, encouragement—don’t really change with time. Once in a while, when buffeted by adult-world difficulties, we might need a small symbol to remind us of that. Mr. Rogers knew it.  My mother would never give herself credit for such an insight, but she knows it, too.

Then there’s Harry to remind me, sitting patiently his post, watching carefully out of that side-eye glare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Kids With Cameras

The scene:  A sunny Sunday afternoon in the neighborhood.

The subject:  G-ma’s new best pal, being lavishly admired by Buddy, camera in hand.

The result:  Documentary?  Comedy?  Biography?  A pinch of all those flavors. Click below to tune in.

 

 

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Remember This

Is grandparenting is a joy like no other? Just ask a G., but only if you have plenty of time on your hands, because chances are you won’t get away quickly.  In the age of social media, you could choke on all the evidence, drown in endless photos of beautiful small people indulged by Gs at opulent birthday parties, proud Gs in worshipful attendance at school sporting events, and on it goes.  Great stuff, we are meant to think, and in most cases, it’s probably true.

Here’s another fact you won’t see in those photos:  Sometimes grandparenting is really, really hard. You probably can’t spot it next to Mickey Mouse at Disney World or inside the travel camper, but this G-ma had to admit it to herself the other day, just the same.

The grandkids may be perfect and beautiful and brilliant and hilarious—again, just ask the nearest G—but they are still just children.  That means they get hungry, and cranky, and tired, and disagreeable, and all the other things that are part of kids being kids, even around their doting grandparents.

For me, the line is pretty clear between what is cheerfully borne without sweat from the grandkids, and what constitutes a dog that won’t hunt, as we like to say in the South.  If you are lucky enough to get lots of time with them when they are really little, like I was, and especially if your adult/kid ratio is like mine (one G per two G-kids), you better learn quickly to loosen up on the anxiety or die.  So, the No-Sweat List is pretty long.  It includes things like crumbs on the couch/rug/countertop/bathroom sink/dog’s back, failure to flush the toilet, average-object breakage, pajamas under a couch cushion, categorical rejection of certain menu items, bedtime avoidance, bed-wetting (distant history here), waking G-ma in the middle of the night, crayon marks on the table, high-decibel shrieking after the neighborhood has quieted for the evening, and…I could go on, but you get the picture.  These things are the standard hues of childhood, the tiny trophies of time spent together, easily done and just as easily mended, usually not worth even the raised eyebrow. My Buddy and Sis are better than average about many of these items, probably worse than some on a few, and over time, it all shakes out. No sweat.

Topping the list of Dogs that Don’t Hunt at G-ma’s house is sibling arguments.  These fights are one of two, maybe three things total that make me break a G-sweat when dealing with these children.  After 2-3 attempts to achieve resolution and standard negotiations at the peace table have stalled, G-ma may fail to be her loving, doting, no-sweat self.  When the patience is gone, sometimes it’s just, well, gone.

I spoke sharply to the children a few days ago, on about the 40th time I told them to separate and stop arguing, after failing to negotiate an enforceable, fact-based peace treaty with what in my line of work we call “issues management.”  With my success rate firmly rooted at zero and threatening to sink further South, I raised my voice and barked:  HEY!  I’m not going to tell you guys again.  YOU! Sit over there, in that chair, keep your hands to yourself and stop whining about your brother.  You! STOP provoking her.  You are old enough to know better.  I’m disappointed in both of you.  I MEAN IT. ENOUGH!

Silence fell.  Wounded souls manifested themselves painfully on flushed faces.  I let the seriousness of the moment simmer for a few age-long moments, then proposed a diversionary activity, and we turned our attention elsewhere.

Still, I hated it.  Sis generally faces life’s travails head-on like a charging bison, lets the emotions flow freely, then motors on confidently to her next adventure.  Buddy, on the other hand, is what the immortal P.G. Wodehouse called a sensitive plant.  He struggles to let things go, lingering over hurt feelings and misunderstandings, his own or those perceived in others.  You can see the evidence all over his face.

I sought to mitigate with a respectful, adult-conversation approach, one arm around his thin little shoulders. In so many things, Buddy is wise beyond his years. “You know,” I said, doing my best not to condescend to his age, “families sometimes get into arguments.  Things are said, and feelings get hurt.  We have to work through those and move on.  Do you understand?”  He nodded, but wouldn’t look me in the eye, then wriggled away.

Drained of diplomacy, I called for jackets, shoes, and dog leash. We made a break for the outdoors and the healing fresh air of a sunny, late fall day.   There’s a charming little lake with fountains hidden in the middle of our little community, and on this afternoon, the resident flock of Canadian geese were reveling in the weather and demonstrating some comical fishing maneuvers.  We dropped into the grass near the water’s edge to watch the show, and the siblings took turns playing with my cellphone camera to capture the action—surprisingly, I noted, settling amicably on turns with the camera and who was doing what in front of the lens. Who knows why these fights come and go so quickly, like summer cloudbursts? It’s not for adults to know, I guess.

I watched them chatter and laugh and tried to shake off my guilt for losing my patience. I said, “Someday when you think back on the time you spent here, promise me you’ll remember this part.  Remember that we walked around the lake and watched the geese fishing and laughed at them flopping over in the water, tail-butt feathers pointed skyward.  Remember that you stuffed your pockets and hood with pine cones and golden leaves and took turns holding the dog leash and ran ahead of me just because you could.  Remember this before you remember that I fussed at you and hurt your feelings and had to be stern even when it broke my heart to do it.  Promise me you’ll remember this part first.”

I didn’t say it out loud, of course.  I just sang it out inside my head, where hope lives, loud enough for them to hear it in their hearts, some distant, sunny fall day when I am gone and they are remembering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Summer Souvenir

A late-season malaise has settled over the wide porch, the headquarters of summer at my house.  The plants are sagging moodily in the August heat, their blooms barely even tired replicas of the first brilliant bursts.  The shards of a broken pot, toppled to its demise in a stormy gust of wind, remain to be swept up.  The inviting rocking chair, this year’s proud new porch trophy, is gathering dust, abandoned and unmoved since the smothering humidity settled stubbornly over the area.  The porch, like many of us in the South this month, is dragging itself toward Labor Day looking and feeling August-y; in other words, hot, grimy, and far less than its charming best.

Near the porch door, where the rain shoes for dog-walking and watering cans and other seasonal paraphernalia perch at the ready, sits one little souvenir of summer. It is an odd leave-behind, a spot of comedy that prompts a laugh in the otherwise dreary scene. It’s been sitting there since June and really needs to be thrown away, but somehow, I can’t make myself toss it. It’s a single, smelly, mud-encrusted, child’s water shoe.

The shoe and its mate went on the feet of my 8-year-old grandson, Buddy, to day camp back for a week back in June at a lovely, wooded park south of town.  Buddy stayed with me for camp week, since it was an easy drive from my house and an extra chance for some special summer time with him.  On the third day, fondly recalled now as Camp D-day, both shoes went bravely out, and only one returned.  The one that remained, opined the veteran camp counselor after the tragic loss, is probably thriving as a salamander castle, adhered for all time to the deep, sticky mud at the bottom of a marshy pond far in the park’s natural center.

Camp D-day rained down insult upon injury on Buddy’s determined blonde head as the long day wore on.  Apparently, he plunged bravely (or so the counselor said; in surveying the aftermath, rashly is the word G-ma chose) with his net deeper than the other children into the pond water in pursuit of tadpoles, the day’s quarry. Suddenly, he found his feet stuck in mud about as unforgiving as quicksand.  The mud held his feet like fast-drying concrete, so firmly that the counselors could not get close and were forced to extricate him by extending a long pole for him to grab.  They heaved a mighty pull to haul him out, leaving one shoe behind for the salamander version of Flip this House.

The young Tadpole Hunter was deeply troubled about the abandoned footwear at the time, the story went, but it was pie compared to the indignities that followed.  While Buddy awaited rescue from the pond water, a leech sampled his ankle for lunch and was later detached with dramatic effect, bloodletting, and the application of a trophy band-aid.  And if that wasn’t enough, the change of damp muddy clothes later revealed an attack of chiggers in the water like nothing his doting G-ma has ever seen.  The tiny itch monsters feasted on him in the only location he was not covered in bug repellent:  under his underwear, everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, if you catch my drift.  A cool, soothing bath, Cortisone ointment and ice packs were required that evening to achieve sleep.

D-day featured the most concentrated dose of malfortune at camp, but other minor calamities occurred as the week progressed, causing G-ma to fear the whole camp thing was a misguided bust that would leave her beloved grandson scarred for life, literally and figuratively.  That was right before Buddy piped up brightly on the last day and asked if he could come back to camp again next year.

Relieved but still fretting, I relayed the D-day horror story to a dear friend who has taught second grade for decades, seeking her expert assessment of the potential long-term impact of Buddy’s camp traumas.  “Believe me,” she said firmly but kindly, in a solid, classroom-managing tone, “he has already moved on.  Now, you need to do the same.”

So, I’m keeping the Buddy Memorial Camp Shoe, for now.  I’m using it to stave off the end-of-summer blues, the oppressive August feeling that life, like the unyielding air blanket, is stuck in a dank and dark place.  Take a lesson from an eight-year-old boy, says the shoe.  Move on.

 

 

 

 

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Can I help?

Consider for a moment, if you will, the peanut butter sandwich.

Universal staple for a child’s mid-day meal for generation. And maybe something more.

I was about to make one for Sis, my six-year-old granddaughter, at lunch time on a recent visit. Before I could say “jelly or honey with it,” here came the most frequent question of our current phase. “Can I help?” she asked.  There followed a deep, yoga-inspired inhale for G-ma, as I considered the implications.  This task involves a knife, of course, and something extremely gooey and sticky, and at six she can’t really reach the counter easily yet, and she is really hungry, and we are due somewhere soon….it is ever thus.  When, oh, when will we have more time?

On the other hand, clamored an alternative self, from somewhere deep down and usually far away, here was a tiny, shiny little chance to teach her something.  Her future success in life would, of course, not rise or fall on this outcome. But if I can encourage her to master these simple steps, with patience, might she come to me for something else?  Remember that I trusted her?  Gain confidence because someone gave her a chance?

And these thoughts were crowded by something else a bit more personal, G-ma should confess, a little voice of ego.  Let’s face it, if you are old enough to be a g-parent, try to remember the last time someone asked for your opinion or guidance or teaching.  Can’t recall?  I bet you have lots of company.  Maybe you are a guru in your field or an actual teacher by profession—but how about the rest of us?  In the space of a single generation, the importance of older people transferring knowledge to younger ones vanished with the pulsating signal of an internet connection.  Poof.

When I was starting out on my own, I turned first to my parents for the fundamentals of daily life.  What gets strawberry stains out of a white shirt?  Will geraniums bloom more than once in a season?  My mother was as near as the phone, and I wore her out with questions like those, her practical experience and coaching a gold mine I could not imagine replicating elsewhere.  How do you service your lawnmower after winter passes?  I called my dad for that stuff.

Those habits are hallmarks of another time, so recent yet now invisible.  Today’s younger generation trusts a YouTube video for instructions, the purportedly authoritative voice of an unmet stranger above the advice of nearly anyone they actually know.  Whether in the family, the workplace, or the community at large, global information sources available at the touch of a finger make counting on our elders for advice a cultural more about as relevant as calling cards or pickle forks. (In full disclosure, I should note that I own both of those relics of anthropological evidence, though I freely admit I haven’t used them in at least a couple of decades.)

And then a new generation appears.  In that ever-shrinking window of time between grandchildren emerging with two hands eager to learn to navigate the world and the arrival of the dark forces of screen time leeching away their conversation skills and relationships, there lies a golden age.  They think the adults in their lives actually hold the keys to important information.  And they want it.  Standing there with the peanut butter jar open and merciless clock ticking, it occurred to me that we are now standing in that window. Here was a chance to prop it open, if I had the sense, and let in a breeze of shared accomplishment.

Sure, say I to Sis, forcibly rejecting the compulsion to exhale in impatience.  Let’s get you a stool so you can see what you are doing. Let’s make a deal, ok?  You do the peanut butter and I’ll do the jelly. Here’s that small knife that you like (with a blunt end and short handle, it’s really a cheese spreader, but she thinks it’s a knife, and hoorah).

PB Sandwich Command Control shifts instantly, as Sis digs deep in the jar for a huge dollop and hurls it like a volleyball spike onto the innocent, waiting surface.  Routinely, her first instinct is to apply effort at the rate of about 175 percent. Her spreading looks more like the pounding of bread dough, threatening to shred the whole wheat slice from sheer pressure. Easy, easy, I coach.  Not quite so hard.

“How do you get it out to the corners?” she asks, having only flattened her dollop slightly via the pounding stroke.  Slide your knife sideways, not up and down, I indicate, that’s right, back and forth, and you’ll spread the peanut butter out to the sides.  Gently, gently…there!  Finally, we have an even application of PB with only minimal gashes. She crowns my jelly-coated slice with her creation and looks up for my approval, radiating triumph.

Ta-da!  I proclaim, Great Job!  Just like that, for a moment, we are teammates and partners on the journey toward lunch.  Suddenly, she seems about six inches taller.

Looking back in time, I am sure I didn’t take time enough to teach my daughter much when she was small.  As a constantly stressed, single mother, overwhelmed by the dynamics of managing career and home on my own, I am certain I was too naturally impatient, too many, many things.  Yet here the universe has brought me another chance to pass on something that just maybe, somehow, might matter–even if that something is not some highly prized life skill, but only trust and encouragement and the respect that comes with those. And surprise, surprise, I gain something in return. If I can slow down long enough and keep my eyes open, I might see that my guidance may have meant something.  Even if it was just peanut butter.

What a deal.  I take my PB with pickles, by the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Deep in the Night

I was just drifting off, Kindle about to tumble from my exhausted hands, when I heard it.  First, a little squeak, sort of, and I looked at the strangely garrulous cat, but she was dozing soundlessly on her corner of the mattress.  My granddaughter was sleeping over and had been out for more than two hours already, after a very active day at summer camp and in the swimming pool.  But a soft, tangled cough soon followed, so I swung my feet off the high bed and tiptoed around to the far side of it.  There was six-year-old Sis, sitting up on her soft pink sleeping palette on the floor of my room, rubbing her sleepy eyes and the top of her head, confused and disoriented.  A long-eared, purple stuffed rabbit named Mim Mim was suffering prolonged strangulation beneath her left armpit.

It was 11:15 p.m.  What now?  Nightmare?  Upset stomach?  Something else?

Hey, I said, very softly, crouching down to eye level, and then I waited.  She looked up, surprised for just a tiny hair of a second, then smiled broadly, looking me straight in the eye.  No words were exchanged, but the smile floated forward as she and Mim Mim belly-flopped back onto the sleeping surface.  And almost instantly, she was out again.

My creaky, sad knees propelled me slowly back up to standing, as quietly as I could.  It’s routine, it’s old stuff, it’s never surprising–kids and their nighttime fears.  For this particular little one, it’s a phase we’ve been in for awhile now.

And yet: I stood still for just a second, frozen briefly in wonder, in a swell of surprising gratitude, that the sight of my face was all it took.  And that I was lucky enough to be there and turn it her way.

 

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Top 10 Grandkid Questions

If the grandkids are awake, breathing, and on the premises, questions are buzzing like bees swarming a hive in summer.  There is nothing to stoke the mental agility, touch the heart, and occasionally terrify the soul of a grandparent more than the questions these little varmints hurl at you.  Here’s a sample of my Top 10 favorites (with apologies to my old pal David Letterman), paired with the often less-than-stellar answers:

No. 10:  Why do some flowers stand up in pots and others hang down?

G-ma:  They’re made like that.  They do that on purpose.

No. 9:  Why is your hair sticking out like that in the back?

G-ma:  Sometimes when you are here I forget to look in the mirror.

No. 8: Can we sing that song you like?

G-ma:  Of course.  You know I’ll sing any place, any time.  But don’t make that face.

No. 7:  Do you like knock-knock jokes?

G-ma:  More than life itself.

No. 6:  What does that button do?

G-ma:  Ummmm…maybe it…or, possibly it’s for…actually, I have no idea.  But I will find out for you.

No. 5:  Are lightning bugs nocturnal?

G-ma:  How on earth did you learn a word like that?

No. 4:  So, what have you been doing lately?

G-ma: (So flabbergasted by question I can’t think of an answer for a couple of seconds.  Then:). Oh, you know, just the usual stuff. Work, walk the dog, you know.

No. 3:  Why do they call these corns ears?

G-ma:  They stick out off the stalk like the ears on your head.  Be careful–they might be listening.

No. 2:  Do you believe God?

G-ma:  Yes.

And the all-time No. 1 favorite G-kid question:  Can I help you?

G-ma:  Of course.  I couldn’t possibly do this without you.

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