Sunday, January 16, 2011

Transition

Dragon Mood? -- still in the early stages of adjustment

So, I told you in my last posting, that I'm going to become a grandma.

It's no small matter transitioning from non-grandma status to being a GRANDMA! Even the fact that I feel the need to capitalize Grandma tells you something about my internal process.

Like my most people, I had two grandmas. One, Granny Kunze, I knew very little, because she lived at the Texas farm and we lived up north. I have a few hazy memories of her in the kitchen, baking and cooking, but I can't recall a single conversation that she and I had together. She died in a car accident when I was ten.

My other grandma, whom I called Nana, is the grandma that informs my sense of who and what a grandma is. I always felt her delight in me. With Nana, I felt absolutely SPECIAL. Again, with the capitals. She and I had a Mutual Admiration Society that knew no bounds. Even in her last years of life, I can remember visiting her one night, unexpectedly knocking at her door. She opened the door hesitantly, cute as a bug in her flannel PJs, cotton robe and thick Coke-bottle glasses, looking more like a little girl than a mid-eighties grandma. I walked in and she bear-hugged me, like I was the only person on this earth. I hugged her back with just as much intensity.

So, as my grandbaby gestates and incubates inside my daughter, Caroline, I too am changing, slowly making the transition from mom/mother/Mamacita to grandma/grandmother/Nana. And what will my grandma name be? I'm kind of liking "Grandberry."

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