Chicken Soup for the Grandma's Soul (15 page)
Oh, what a ride! Several times Mike or Dave glanced back and inquired if Grandma was doing okay. Gripping the seat stiffly, I did not enjoy riding upâor downâwhat felt like ninety-degree hills. But I was there for Dave and squeaked out, “Fine,” to their chuckles, as Mike drove over and through every imaginable obstacle and finished with a road test on the freeway!
Later, buckling up to head home, I marveled at the answer to my prayer. An exhausted Dave placed his souvenirs and crutches in the back and tilted his seat for a rest. The quiet ride home was broken a few minutes later with a sleepy chuckle and music to a grandmother's ears. “You'll never be able to top this, Gram. . . . It was a Hummer of a day!”
Delores Christian Liesner
T
here is nothing more properly the language of
the heart than a wish.
Robert South
I was barely awake when the phone rang at 7:20 A.M.
“Hello?” I mumbled groggily, trying to clear the fog from my sleepy brain.
A little voice whispered, “Hi, Grandma!”
Suddenly I was wide awake. “Hi, Logan.” I was surprised and delighted with the wake-up call because I knew his parents cautioned him not to call me too early in the morning. “How are you today?”
“Grandma,” he continued to whisper, “Mom's still sleeping and Daddy went to get a newspaper, so I sneaked on the telephone.”
I chuckled at the thought of this four-year-old waiting for an opportune moment to phone his grandma, knowing he can call me any time, day or night. There are no restrictions on our relationship, certainly not with something as mundane as time.
“Is today a Grandma Day?” he asked hopefully. Grandma Days are the highlights of his young life.
“Yes, it is. Are you ready to come over?”
He assured me he was, and I was there at 8:30 A.M. sharp to pick him up.
“What would you like to do today?” I asked as we drove the few blocks to my home.
“Let's go to Goose Lake, Grandma.” He giggled and said, “That sounds funny. Goose Lake Grandma!” He laughed as though he had made a huge joke and started chanting, “Goose Lake Grandma! Goose Lake Grandma!”
I got his tricycle out of the garage and we began the one-mile trek to Goose Lake, which is actually a man made lake in a residential area. Its real name is Foxwarren Lake, but to Logan it is Goose Lake because of the numerous Canada geese that have made it their home.
As he pedaled down the sidewalk, he practiced reading street numbers on the houses we passed. Then he counted by twos, fives and tens, and then backward from 100. He had an obsession with numbers. The bigger the number, the more he liked it.
“See that tree?” He pointed to an elm tree. “It's going to turn into an apple tree soon. The apples might have little worms in them.”
I smiled at the idea of an elm tree bearing apples.
“Look, Grandma, a zillion dandelions!” We stopped to stare at a field, covered in yellow and white softness. “Dandelions are weeds,” he stated.
“Yes, they are,” I agreed.
“But I still like them.”
“I know you do,” I answered. He picked a dandelion that had gone to seed, closed his eyes and blew the white puffy tendrils away.
“I made a wish. Do you want to know what I wished?”
“If you tell me, it won't come true,” I said.
“But I want you to know,” he insisted.
“Well, if you whisper it in my ear, then it should be okay.” I bent down, and he cupped my ear with his hand and whispered his wish.
He stopped to pick up a feather, examined it closely, then put it into his bicycle basket. An unusual stone followed the feather, adding to his treasures from nature.
At Goose Lake we played in the park and watched the geese, which observed us, hoping for a handout. “Look at all the ducklings,” remarked Logan, watching the fuzzy yellow babies waddle after their very protective parents.
“They're called goslings,” I corrected. “Baby ducks are ducklings, and baby geese are goslings.”
“Well then, they should be called gooselings! Look, there's Mother Goose!”
Disappointed that we didn't have food to offer them, Mother Goose gave a warning hiss and shuffled off with her little ones in tow, plunging into the lake. I guess they couldn't read the sign that stated “No Swimming”.
On the way back home, Logan recited the house numbers on the other side of the street. He tried to whistle and when a faint sound came out, he announced gleefully, “I have magic lips!”
“Hold my hand, Grandma,” he said, so I did. He pedaled his tricycle, steering with the other hand. I recalled what his mother said to him as we left that morning. “Have a good day with Grandma,” she said, blowing him a kiss.
“I always do,” Logan said. He paused, then continued, “And I always will!”
As he pedaled along, I squeezed his chubby hand in mine, remembering his dandelion wish . . . that every day be a Grandma Day, and “a grillion days more.”
I knew I'd hold his hand for a while but his heart forever.
Maria Harden
A
grandmother is a little bit parent, a little bit
teacher and a little bit best friend.
G. W. Curtis
Mishelle's brown eyes sparkled during the entire ceremony. She couldn't wait for the day she graduated from kindergarten, and had talked about it for weeks. Now she was standing on the stage with her classmates. Twenty five-year-olds wore blue graduation caps with tassels brushing against rosy cheeks flushed with excitement.
I snapped several pictures throughout the morning ceremony, capturing her big smile during each song that had been carefully rehearsed for parents, grandparents and family members. The highlight of the ceremony arrived when my youngest granddaughter marched across the stage to receive her kindergarten diploma.
She is quiet by nature, but I noticed she had little control over the spring in her step, almost skipping to reach her long-awaited certificate. I thought how beautiful she looked in her new pink-and-white flowered dress and patent leather shoes.
Following the ceremony, assorted cookies, frosted cupcakes and red fruity punch was served to the young graduates. While munching on sweets, Mishelle introduced me to several classmates in frilly dresses. Her chatter was excited. And rightly so. This was the biggest day of her life.
Arrangements had been made for the children with working moms to spend the afternoon playing games in a supervised classroom until their parents picked them up. My granddaughter was prepared to join the other children when her mother had to return to work.
I had an idea. Speaking to her mother, I said, “Rather than stay at school, can Mishelle come home with me?”
My daughter-in-law thought for a moment.
“We'll have lunch together,” I said, quickly adding, “and you can pick her up after work.”
The instant her mother said yes, Mishelle began jumping up and down, clapping her hands.
A passerby, noticing her exuberance, said to Mishelle, “I see you're very excited about graduating today.”
“No, not that,” she answered.
The bystander looked puzzled, and my heart soared when my granddaughter said, “I'm going to Grandma's house.”
Diane M. Vanover
A
laugh is worth one hundred
groans in any market.
Charles Lamb
Who would have ever imagined they'd do such a thing?
Joel, my son, was celebrating his fourth birthday. Our family and friends gathered at the local Discovery Zone to party. After pizza and presents, it was time to play.
The kids crawled into the ball pen, where they literally swam through hundreds of balls. A large tunnel wound up and around the building. One by one, children crawled up and through the tunnel and traveled down its slide, shooting out the end straight into the sea of balls.
I never saw them make their move, finding their way into the balls. I didn't even see them enter the tunnel that climbed up to the top of the slide.
But I heard them!
My head turned.
It couldn't be . . . they couldn't have!
But they had!
My jaw dropped as I looked up and saw Grandma Mary Lou and Grandma Joyce on all fours, cramped inside the tunnel at the top of the slide.
“You go first,” Grandma Mary Lou insisted.
“Well, I have to!” Grandma Joyce replied. “You couldn't get around me if you wanted too!”
And then giggles and laughter, like that of schoolgirls, streamed out of the tunnel . . . but no grandmas followed.
I maneuvered closer and positioned my camera, getting the perfect picture of two dedicated grandmas in ever-so-compromising positions.
“Are you gonna go?” I asked while looking up the tube. “You two are holding up the line.”
Within seconds, Grandma Joyce made a splash as she flew down and out the tunnel and was buried beneath the balls.
“Are you okay? Lady, are you okay,” a bystander asked.
I held my post and looked up into the tunnel again. Instead of shwooshing down the slide as Grandma Joyce did, Grandma Mary Lou sought a more sophisticated way. With her appendages spread-eagled and securely pressed against the sides of the tunnel, she sought to inch her way down the slide. Her body shook with laughter. Several children, strangers and family members, stood watching to see the last grandma propel from the slide. Wanting to savor the moment, I took more pictures of Grandma Joyce wading through balls and Grandma Mary Lou struggling to maintain somewhat of a ladylike position while contorting down the slide.
Within minutes, two grandmas emerged from the ball pen. Immediately, they headed directly to the little girls room, no doubt to gather their senses and pull themselves together. I marveled at them as they passed me. Grandma Mary Lou and Grandma Joyce, truly two dedicated grandmasâ and certainly the life of the party!
Janet Lynn Mitchell
“Let's come back tomorrow with the grandchildren.”
Reprinted by permission of Cartoon Resource. ©2004.
T
he best hearts are ever the bravest.
Lawrence Sterne
When Grandma Emma Kobbeman's husband died during the Great Depression in 1932 she was just forty-two years old with five children ranging from twelve to twenty-three years old. From that day on, she struggled with poverty, single parenting and trying to find work with a fourth-grade education. She struggled, but she never lost her sense of humor or her spirit of adventure.
By 1960 Emma was a grandma with twenty-four grandchildren, all of whom lived close to her in northern Illinois. During the late forties, fifties and early sixties we'd gather often for a huge family picnic in a park not far from her home. This beautiful park along the shores of the Rock River was filled with Indian lore and bordered the home of Grandma's oldest child, my aunt Helen, and her six children.
One of those family picnics remains crystal clear in my memory. As Grandma's five children, their spouses and her two dozen grandchildren arrived, carrying enough food for Chief Black Hawk's entire army, we spread out among the tall pine trees to enjoy the day. Grandma, of course, presided over the festivities from her folding lawn chair, giggling at the antics of whatever baby happened to be the youngest member of our sprawling family.
Perhaps she ate too many sweets that day and was on a sugar high, or maybe it was the sight of her entire immediate family gathered together that made her feel especially frivolous. Whatever it was, we held our breath when Grandma made the announcement with her hands on her hips and a twinkle in her eye that she was going for a ride on my cousin's go-cart. She walked straight over to the go-cart and announced in a loud, clear voice to her eldest grandson, “Larry, show me how to run this thing.”