Chicken Soup for the Grandma's Soul Read Free Page A

her beautiful mother. Now you steal her out of the crib one night and replace her with a child who looks like my son?
    â€œYes, she has her father’s eyes and expressions,” the court of family opinion confirmed.
    I conceded. When she looked at me I saw her father’s deep, contemplative eyes. When she said “uh-oh” as she picked up scraps from the floor, I realized she was a neatnik like her dad. When her legs grew off the doctor’s charts, I knew they were her daddy’s long legs. When she became strongly independent, I remembered, so was her dad.
    My grandma’s heart thrived with this fresh supply of past and present memories, until it suffered a second shock, six months later.
    â€œYour granddaughter looks just like you,” someone said to me. Family opinion voted affirmatively.
    Oh, no, poor kid, I thought. I couldn’t believe that in less than two years she had gone through three distinct metamorphoses, from a look-alike of her mother, a stamp imprint of her father, to a picture of me! What was she—a child or a butterfly?
    Curious, I did some research. I learned that if I were to look into a cocoon in the early stages, I would find a puddle of glop that contains imago cells with DNA-coded instructions for turning cream of insect soup into a delicate, winged creature.
    That’s it! She’s a child with the power of glop! She will change her identity many times, each time emerging like a beautiful butterfly. Yet I will be proud that this everchanging display of beauty, in each stage of life, is my unique first granddaughter.
    Margaret Lang

Someone’s Grandmother
    B lessed be the hand that prepares a pleasure for a child, for there is no saying when and where it may bloom forth.
    Douglas Jerrold
    I was a frustrated wannabe grandmother. Every time I saw a small baby, I’d hear the ticking of the biological clock. All right, I admit that it wasn’t my clock. But our two adult daughters had healthy clocks that I could hear ticking, even if they couldn’t. That the younger one had just reached adulthood and that neither daughter was married were beside the point. I wanted to be someone’s grandmother.
    One day Jennifer, our elder daughter, called with the news, “Mom, I’m getting married!” She followed this with more good news, “Chuck has custody of his two-year-old son. We plan to come home to Alaska for the wedding.”
    I was ecstatic to be an instant grandma. Then I had a moment’s pause as I tried to figure out what to do with a grandson. We raised two daughters and I have a sister. It occurred to me that I had no idea how to entertain a small boy. Could I be his grandma? Would he accept me? Would Chuck let his son call me “Grandma”?
    Jennifer, Chuck and Chase arrived in the spring, had a summer wedding and I officially became an instant grandmother. I tried to pace myself getting to know my young grandson. Over the summer we explored hiking trails along the Mendenhall Glacier and tide pools in Tee Harbor. We picked wild blueberries, watched tiny hummingbirds, baked cookies and had long talks in a child’s language that I’d long forgotten. All the while I fretted over losing touch with him when Jennifer and Chuck moved south again. I knew I had only a few short months with Chase.
    In late fall, fate stepped in. My carpenter-husband Bob took a fall. He had a double compound fracture of his right arm and would be off work for at least nine months. Winter loomed ahead. With the heavy snowfall would come snow shoveling, snow plowing, keeping the furnace running and other winter tasks around the house. Jennifer and Chuck decided to postpone their trip south until the next year so they could help us through the winter. I had another nine months to spend with my new grandson.
    Over the winter Chase and I watched Disney movies together, sang during baths about tiny frogs and bars of soap, danced the