Remembering the elderly and being a grandma

Good grandmas come in all kinds of packages

My good friend of 20 years or more moved away and is now living in an old folks’ home halfway across the country. I miss her very much and told her so at Christmastime in a Facebook message, even though accessing such technology is challenging for her. Yesterday she sent me a letter in the mail—yes, the kind that comes with a stamp and a handwritten signature. I cried when I read her words, “For sure I didn’t intend to live this long. It takes lots of effort to fight depression, but I’m doing just fine.” Evidently, her children and grandchildren visit when they can, but, as she says, “Everyone is busy.”

She makes great efforts to stay involved by going to church, but people live “far and wide” and scoot home right after the services, making it hard to make friends. A retired school teacher in her eighties, she still manages to volunteer at a local school and to read voraciously, but stimulating conversation is still hard to come by.

It's so easy to forget or sideline the elderly. When we do, they suffer and we all pay a price. We miss their wisdom and their warmth, and they miss our hugs and our happenings. 

I used to envy people a little when they spoke of visiting grandparents. It seemed those grandparents, who spoiled them in one way or another, had boundless love that always erred on the side of softness. What a boon for a child to have such a refuge in a world otherwise full of demands, drudgery, and danger! Such a haven was not my blessing because most of my grandparents were deceased before I was born or when I was very young. 

Yet, something in me must have craved that kind of connection because once in high school and again in college I “adopted” a grandma. In rest homes, I sought out Lexie Peterson and later Mama Chris, both sweet, tender women who, after decades of living, chose to see and speak of only the good things in life.

The only grandma I knew wasn’t exactly the warm, cookie-jar type. My father’s mother came to live with us when she was mostly homebound. She was as frank as the day is long, and loud, too. To visit her, we’d simply go upstairs to her room where if we begged, she would bust out her harmonica and play “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” while we raced around and around her bed. Occasionally she would belt out the words to what she once sang (mostly shouted) as a lullaby: “Oh, you take the hatchet, and I’ll take the saw, and we’ll saw off the leg of my mother-in-law!” Not exactly soothing music for a child, but entertaining and very funny. Grandma loved anything sweet and would hide cookies and candy in her apron, and she had no aptitude for sewing, although she spent hours darning socks no one would ever wear.

Grandma Tanner surrounded by 10 of her grandchildren

Most of my good friends are grandmothers now, and every single one of them seems to love that role. To them, every childhood foible is laughable; every errant deed is adorable. I admit to panicking slightly when I hear their talk of crocheting baby caps and making beautiful homemade quilts and blessing gowns. Those skills have never been my strength. So, knowing this will be my next stage in life, I find myself peppering these ladies with questions about how to be a good grandma. What do you like about being a grandma? What works? What are the pitfalls to avoid? Time and tenderness are always in order, they say, and, to no one’s surprise, gifts almost always go over well.

Above all, one friend warned me, “You’ve got to be sweet and kind, or else they won’t come to visit you.” Since sweetness has never been my strong suit, I guess I keep waiting for someone to advise me to feed them, read to them, and dance with them. I want to hear, “It’s really great to tickle them, tease them, and tell them things straight, and they’ll love you for it.”

In any case, I hope someday my future grandchildren will recognize—the way I did from being around my grandma—that grandma-love comes packaged in all kinds of ways. Above all, I just hope that, whatever kind of grandma I turn out to be, I will not be the forgotten kind.