Chicken Soup for the Grandma's Soul (5 page)
I had to give God a nod on that one, too. Lauren loved to “cook” and set the table and even clean up. In fact, when dinner was over, my granddaughters vanished, while Lauren happily cleared the table and helped me rinse the dishes.
A few weeks later my son called. Could I possibly watch Lauren overnight? My granddaughters were with their mother and he had won a weekend stay in a hotel. He and his bride had never had a honeymoon.
Lauren arrived with her doll and pajamas. We spent the weekend playing dominoes, watching old Disney movies and eating popcorn. Lauren was enchanted. Spending time, not money, was a new and exciting concept. The weekend passed much too quickly. I began to see her in a new light. She was a loving child. As she became more comfortable with me, she blossomed, chattering about all kinds of subjects.
Lauren's seventh birthday arrived a few months later. I blinked twice and she was ten.
The phone rang. “Hi, Grandma.”
“Hi, Lauren. What's up?”
“Oh, nothing. I'm just kinda bored.”
“Where are your sisters?”
“With their mom.”
“Isn't this your weekend with your dad?”
“Yeah, but he's on a business trip.”
“Are you lonely?”
“Yeah. There's no one to play with.” Lauren hadn't been an only child for a long time.
“Do you want me to come get you?”
“Yes!”
We stopped off at Target on our way back to the house.
As we walked up and down the aisles of the housewares department, Lauren happily chirped, “My Grandmother Houston loves pretty china.” She pointed at the picture frame display. “My Grandmother Willy loves picture frames like those.”
Grinning down at her I asked, “And what does this grandmother love?” I hoped she'd say “Jesus,” but she didn't.
Smiling shyly she answered in one word: “Me!”
Rachel R. Patrick
T
he future destiny of the child is always the
work of the mother.
Napoleon Bonaparte
It was a hot summer afternoon just before my daughter Julia's senior year in college when she called long distance.
“Mom, I'm . . . I'm . . . pregnant.”
Dumbstruck, I could barely breathe, let alone talk.
My mind raced.
She'd only been dating her latest boyfriend for
six months. How could this happen? How would she ever finish
college?
I took a deep breath and listened to what Julia had to say through her tears.
Her words tumbled out as if she were a defense attorney addressing a jury. “His mom thinks we should get married, but I'm just not ready for that. I really don't know him well enough. I know we made a mistake and I'm very, very sorry, but. . .”
Oh no, here it comes,
I thought.
“Mom, this is my baby. I am this child's mother. I know it won't be easy, but I know I can do it.”
I sucked in a big gulp of air and whispered a prayer of thanks.
But then I started to worry. How would Julia be able to finish college? How could she attend classes, work her two part-time jobs and take care of a baby?
Julia loved college. She loved living in a big house off campus with five other girls. And most of all, she loved the parties and the social life. How could she possibly continue that lifestyle while she was pregnant?
The answer came two months later, just before school started, when Julia and her boyfriend moved into a tiny apartment off campus. He explained, “I know this isn't the ideal situation, but I have a responsibility to Julia and to the baby. I'm going to be here to help her through this pregnancy. I'll work while she finishes school.”
The following March I received a phone call that woke me from a deep sleep.
“Hi, Grandma!” The words rattled through my brain like fireworks as I shot out of the bed. “Baby Hailey and Julia are doing fine.”
Julia dropped out of college for two semesters to stay home and take care of Hailey full-time while her boyfriend worked at a lumberyard. During those carefree summer days Julia experienced the joy of motherhood.
Her phone calls and letters to me sang tales about Hailey's every little accomplishment, from rolling over to smiling, about their long walks with a borrowed stroller, and about rummage sales where Julia found “tons of great baby clothes and most of them are only a quarter or fifty cents!”
That summer Julia developed a sense of calmness and organization that I'd never seen in my partying college coed. She had been transformed into a mom who was spending every one of her summer days simply cherishing her new baby daughter. Not once did I hear her mention that she missed the college parties or the shenanigans with her old friends.
One day in September, after Julia started back to school to finish her senior year, she phoned. “Mom, there's a conference for people all over the United States who are experts in my major. My professors really want me to go. The hotel where it's at is just a few miles from your house.”
Before she could even ask, I shouted into the phone, “Yes! I'd love to watch Hailey!” It would be my first full day alone with my only grandchild. I could feel a giddy sense of joy bubbling up inside.
As I watched my daughter prepare to leave her daughter the morning of the conference, I listened as she put the well-being and safety of her child ahead of anything else in her life. I nodded enthusiastically at Julia's long list of things to do and how to do them for Hailey.
That day was nonstop joy for me as I played with, strolled, talked to, laughed with, fed, took pictures of and rocked my baby granddaughter. I found myself just watching her sleep, as I had done so many times when my own children were tiny.
A few weeks later Julia called me again in the middle of the day, bursting with news. “Mom, I had a long talk with the head of the department today at school. She said she can't get over how different I am this semester. She said I'm so organized and my attitude is so positive and that the entire department is amazed at how much I've accomplished and how well I'm doing in my classes.”
My mind and heart swelled with pride and awe at the way my daughter's life was unfolding right before my eyes.
When I look back to that summer day when my unmarried daughter told me she was pregnant, I knew our worlds were about to change drastically. But little did I know that Julia's unselfish courage to give birth to her unplanned child, at a time in her life when motherhood was definitely not on her list of things to do, would be a new beginning for our family.
I learned that one of the joys of being a grandmother comes from watching your daughter grow into a mother.
Patricia Lorenz
A
nd now abide in faith, hope, and love, these
three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13
L
ove is all we have, the only way we can help
the other.
Euripedes
The whole town called her Oohoo. Until the day she died peacefully in her sleep at the age of ninety-nine, many never knew her real name. I was the grandchild who coined the name when I was four or five. My mother would walk me the two blocks to my grandma's house and help me climb the steep steps to her massive front door, which she always left unlocked. As Mom turned the knob and opened the door she would sing out, “Ooooooo hooooooooo.” Almost immediately, the beautiful, stately, white-haired lady with the big smile would come running down her staircase and scoop me into her arms.
I was a chubby, awkward, middle child, growing up in a small town in the 1950s where everybody knew everybody and all of their business. For some unknown reason, I experienced in my youth what too many kids are still experiencing today. If it hadn't been for Oohoo and the safe haven of her loving home, I might have fallen through the cracks. By age ten I had learned to “stuff down my feelings and insecurities,” and by sixteen I was one hundred pounds overweight. But at Oohoo's house I never felt judged. At school I was a well-known troublemaker who had been in and out of the principal's office and suspended many times. But Oohoo loved me unconditionally and expected only the best from me.
My sister, Donna, was my hero and role model. She was four years older and had always been everything I wanted to be: head cheerleader, prom queen, valedictorian, yearbook queen, size eight. My younger brother, Duke, was just as admirable: star athlete, A+ student, Mr. Popularity. Then there was “Poor Debbie.” I heard that name applied to me so often that I lost count. Eventually I began drinking and smoking and trying anything I could sniff or swallow. The label “at-risk youth” had not yet been coined, but I could have been the poster child.
Oohoo kept her door unlocked for a crying ten-year-old when she was called “Fatso,” for a fifteen-year-old who wasn't chosen for the cheerleading squad, for a seventeen-year-old who wrecked the car and was afraid to tell her parents, and for a twenty-one-year-old who didn't want to live anymore.
My poor parents took me to counselors and doctors and were always trying to pull me out of my abyss. Upon the advice of a child psychologist, they agreed to let me stay with Oohoo temporarily. She never mentioned my weight, never condemned me and always treated me with respect and dignity. She was tough on curfew and following house rules, but she immersed me in love and became my role model.
Every Sunday from as early as I can remember, Oohoo picked me up for Sunday school. She taught there for seventy-eight years and practiced every word of what she preached. I never heard her say one unkind word about anyone; she was a friend to people of all backgrounds, cultures and races. Oohoo taught me the meaning of selfless giving, generosity and unconditional love. It is life's tests that make us either bitter or better. Oohoo taught me to be better.
I didn't know at that time about Oohoo's own broken heart or her problems with my grandfather. Against all odds, my precious grandmother had graduated from the University of Missouri in 1919, and she inspired me to stay in school and go on to college as well. Her house was filled with poetry and literature from her own classes. Her old trunk was filled with costumes from her days in Hollywood when she boldly accepted a journalism assignment where young women then were not encouraged to go.
Oohoo had been a teacher and a journalist, and I became a teacher and a journalist too. Who would ever have thought I would be an English and drama teacher using some of the old books and costumes I carried from Oohoo's house?
I am so grateful that Oohoo lived long enough to see me marry my college sweetheart, lose one hundred pounds, return to my family as a prodigal daughter and become Teacher of the Year. I got to tell her that she was my hero on the celebration of my grandparents' sixty-fifth wedding anniversary.
She stayed with my grandfather when she had reason to leave, but he, too, turned around later in his life, realizing what a gem he had in Oohoo.
I began my career with an advantage because Oohoo taught me unconditional love and empathetic listening skills I would never have learned elsewhere. Having served now in the field of education for over thirty years, I can honestly say I believe most “problem children” could be turned around if they had a caring grandparent, an “Oohoo,” in their life. As high school and university instructors, we are told to call home at the first sign of any problem behavior, academic or otherwise. When my students' parents aren't home, or are too busy or just don't know how to help, I have the alternative solution. Invariably there is a caring, knowing, loving person already waiting to help. All I need to do is ask, “May I speak to your grandmother?”
Debra D. Peppers
Y
ou save an old man and you save a unit; but
you save a boy, and you save a multiplication
table.
“Gipsy” Smith
When I was twelve years old I was locked up in juvenile hall after being released from a Florida reform school. I refused to return to the Children's Home Society where I was raised. I was never going back to that orphanage, even if I had to spend the rest of my life locked up in a small cage at juvenile hall.
I had been there for several months, and I had flatly refused even to walk out the front door to help them clean up the streets for fear they would take me back to that awful orphanage.
It was a Wednesday morning, and a man named Burt who worked for the court came into my cell and asked me if I wanted to go somewhere special for Thanksgiving dinner. I told him that I did not want to go outside of the juvenile shelter. I liked Burt because he was a nice man. Burt's brother had written a song, which they played on the radio, called “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
Burt kept going on and on about Thanksgiving dinner and how a kid should not be locked up on Thanksgiving. So I finally told him that I would go.