Adults remembering their grandparents.
Parents struggling to connect with their children.
Grandparents raising their grandchildren.
Abstract:
A little girl’s soul grows older and she grows wiser while living with her grandparents.
Keywords:
Grandparents, divorce, child, grandma, grandpa, parents, mom, arthritis
From ages four to seven, I lived with my grandparents in the Morningside Addition on the south side of my hometown. It was a blue-collar neighborhood where all of the houses looked vaguely similar—just enough alike you could easily get lost in the side streets and cul-de-sacs. My grandparents’ three-bedroom, split-level house was the type you’d drive by and not even notice. It was white, no accent color to draw your attention, and it had only one tree hardly worth the bother of climbing in the front yard.
My parents were going through a divorce. My mom moved me to my grandparents’ house to both literally and figuratively shelter me from the pain of watching that event unfold. In that nondescript house, with only a child’s idea of what was happening to my parents, I was intensely happy. There, I learned lessons that only grandparents have the patience or wherewithal to teach. In each of those rooms, I learned something invaluable.
BEDROOM
When I moved in, my grandparents converted their spare bedroom into my room. That didn’t mean doing much. No furniture was replaced; no knickknacks were cleared. I slept in a queen bed. Grandma’s collections, as she called them, remained tucked away in dresser drawers and stuffed in the closet. Grandpa’s framed prints—he made a living as a picture framer—still hung on the wall.
The only sign the room belonged to a little girl was the closet full of child-size clothes.
“There’s no sense in making a fuss,” Grandma would say.
LIVING ROOM
Grandpa watched his shows in the living room. The box television sat in one corner of the open space; the couch ran across the wall adjacent to it. Grandpa’s recliner sat somewhere in between. Grandpa was hard of hearing, and even though he wore hearing aids, he still sat as close to the TV as he could get (and Grandma would allow).
True crime programs were his favorites. I’d sit next to him on the brown wall-to-wall carpet, listening to his commentary. He’d ask if I was scared when something particularly spooky happened on Unsolved Mysteries, and I’d bravely say, “No.”
“Good,” he’d say. “If it’s not in front of you, it shouldn’t scare you.”
KITCHEN
The kitchen was my favorite room in the house. Grandma never seemed to leave it. I’d find her scurrying across the linoleum baking brownies, cooking meatloaf, or listening to Dr. Laura on the radio. She’d look up and invite me to join her mess. That’s what she called it: her mess.
The countertops were covered in bills, receipts, and recipes she wanted to try. The cabinets were overflowing with mayonnaise jars, butter containers, and bread bags she planned on repurposing. And when she cooked, the kitchen exploded. Every cabinet door opened, and every utensil ended up on the counter. But every ingredient was scrupulously measured and added to the bowl, and when she was done—and not a second before—the kitchen was scrubbed clean.
“A good cook is messy, but careful,” Grandma would say.
BASEMENT
The basement was my jungle gym. It contained just about everything a child could want: an old trampoline, an out-of-tune piano, a bright orange divan, and boxes of my mom and uncle’s toys. (It is worth noting that Grandma always called that particular couch a divan, but she referred to no other couch as a divan.) I’d spend hours rummaging through boxes and creating obstacle courses. The room seemed huge in proportion to my small stature, and it felt like mine.
If Mom questioned their lack of oversight in the basement, Grandma would say, “She can’t hurt anything. There’s nothing we can’t replace.”
GARAGE
Grandpa had a small workshop in the garage, though he rarely used it by the time I lived with them. Sometimes he’d refinish a small piece of furniture in the corner next to his workbench, and sometimes my uncle would help him tinker with a car. Grandpa couldn’t do much. He was severely crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, and even though he was only in his 60s at the time, he could barely walk. His hands, a necessary tool for a picture framer, were deformed—his fingers bent painfully inward—and his neck bowed slightly to the right. Despite his limitations, he never complained.
It took 16 steps to get to the garage. Grandpa counted each one on the way down, taking them slowly and purposefully, and when he was finally in his pickup and pulling out of the garage, he’d look over at me, smile, and say, “We’re off like a herd of turtles.”
BACKYARD
Grandma and Grandpa sent me outside every chance they got. The backyard was large and empty but for a few small trees and Grandma’s garden. Grandma, who was raised on a farm, would often follow me out. We’d play follow the leader—for which I was always the leader—search for four-leaf clovers and daddy longlegs, and weed her garden.
When Grandma asked me what I wanted to grow one summer, I told her a pumpkin. She bought the seed, but the rest was my responsibility. At dinner, she’d ask, “Have you checked on your garden lately?” I’d bolt out to water it. When the day finally came to pick the pumpkin, I was the happiest I’d ever been.
It was the first time, but not the last, Grandma would say, “You did it.”
Grandma and Grandpa moved out of that house about 10 years after me. They’re both gone now—a fact that will forever cripple me. I still drive by that house, and despite its muted exterior, I see Grandma’s mess in the kitchen and smell her brownies in the oven. I hear a little girl’s laughter, and I feel deep gratitude for my grandparents.
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