Some Kids Get Lucky

It seems to me that some kids get lucky enough to have one person in their extended family with whom they really connect. I was one of those kids. I adored my Grannie. With an adult's perspective I can see how Grannie might not have seemed as exceptional to the rest of the world as I always found her. She was a teen bride, mother of four, and I'm not sure she graduated from that boarding school in Chicago sometimes mentioned. She was good at getting married, but not great at staying married. She had a hundred business ideas that never quite made it, from fixing baby dolls to basket weaving, from Amway to taxidermy. Maybe some of these were hobbies, but they often came with a business card (not a business plan). As I write this, I think maybe Grannie would have made a great heroine in a (Steinbeck?) novel.

These things were the human balance for her superhuman status in my childhood. As a child, I found her to be beautiful, generous, loving, and the right mix of playfulness and discipline. As an adolescent I was inspired by her grace, strength, independence, and dignity. As a mom, I hope I can someday embody such an inspiring combination of things in spite of my own weaknesses. Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of my Grannie's death. Her memory is very much alive in our home though. Her mantle clock sounds the Westminster chime every 15 minutes and DH often mentions that it is Grannie's greeting for something we are doing. Her picture hangs in the nursery where LO seems to look at it daily. We say "Good Morning Grannie" every day. Of course LO's name was partly inspired by hers. My Grannie touched a lot of people's lives during hers. We all do. I'm so grateful that our lives connected the way they did. I hope, somehow, my life enriched hers as much as she did mine. I was a lucky kid. I hope LO will be too.