It Takes A Grandmother

On Dec. 15 last year, my son got accepted to his dream school, Yale. If this is news to you, you must not know my mother. Or know anyone who knows her. Or have spent any time in Lexington in the last few months.

Dotty is a walking “Ask Me About My Grandson” bumper sticker. Except that there is no need to ask. She will tell you anyway. Family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, strangers at Starbucks, you name it.

Among her early round of calls announcing the college news was to our longtime dentist’s office, where she left a voicemail message that “my grandson, and your patient, just got accepted to Yale.” I wonder what the receptionist thought when she retrieved that one. So he needs a cleaning before he leaves?

It’s all a bit embarrassing. I’ve found myself wishing that she were more like the mother of Big Bang Theory’s Leonard Hofstadter. If you’re not a fan of the show (and you’re missing out), Leonard is an experimental physicist at Caltech, but is eclipsed by his brother, a Harvard law professor; and his sister, a cutting-edge medical researcher working with gibbons to cure diabetes.

"You must be very proud,” Leonard’s friend, Howard, says to Leonard’s mom during one of my favorite episodes.

"Why?” she deadpans. “They're not my accomplishments.”

Alex’s many accomplishments are certainly his own. But he’d be the first to tell you that he has had many advantages. And that his grandmother is chief among them.

Alex’s dad and I moved to Lexington, where my parents lived, about three years before Alex was born. We’ve been here ever since. So my mother has had a pivotal role in the making of the young adult he has become. 

Alex is her only grandchild. She was there the night he was born at Central Baptist Hospital. She saw him about every other day when he was an infant, taking her turn at the rocking and feeding and bathing and soothing. Then, he was a toddler. You know those grandmothers who can sit for entire afternoons with a cup of tea, watching their grandchildren play? Dotty was not one of those grandmothers. She was on the floor with him, building block villages and Play-Doh masterpieces. One of Alex’s favorite toys as a preschooler was his toy kitchen, and they’d frequently play “restaurant,” with Grandma placing her order for hamburgers and fries or eggs over easy.

At every stage, she read to him for hours at a time. First, Boynton board books, Good Night Moon and Where the Wild Things Are. Later, chapter books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when the whole family gathered for the chapter where Charlie found the golden ticket. And the first Harry Potter book, the last book that he relied on us to read for him.

She watched Barney and Arthur and Winnie the Pooh. She tackled wooden puzzles and floor puzzles. She played Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Sorry, and Trouble, and helped Alex learn to lose with grace (or at least to fake it). “Good game. Congratulations,” he’d force himself to say, faking a smile and fighting back tears. Note: he still hates to lose, as does his mother.

Grandma was/is a permanent part of the support crew at birthdays, plays, concerts and school events. She is there for all of it. She is generous with her time, and generous with her modest resources. She works full-time in retail at age 76 (yes, you read that right) and has a hefty “Alex” line in her monthly budget.  She shops more for him than she does for herself. She’s decorated three bedrooms, several playrooms and a gaming room/office. On his 16^th birthday she bought him a 2008 Mazda, a decade newer than her own car. Whatever he’s doing she’s there with a check, for camps, trips, lessons, equipment, you name it. This month’s contributions: his cap and gown purchase and prom tuxedo rental.

As grateful as I am for all of that, I’m most grateful for something else. She has kept my dad’s memory alive so that Alex could grow up with him, too, even though he died two years before Alex was born.  In fact, his birth helped ease my mother’s grief in a very real way.

A year after my dad’s death, my mother was still replaying in excruciating detail the five hours between his heart attack and his death, reliving interactions with the EMTs, the cardiologists, the hospital chaplain. After Alex was born, she replaced those hospital faces with his. And suddenly, that terrible memory started to fade.

For the last 18 years, as Alex has been busy growing up, he and Grandma have been making memories of their own. We’re looking forward to May 26, when Alex graduates from high school and then less than three months later, when he starts his freshman year at Yale. It’s a busy time, so lest I forget to say it then, let me say it now: Congratulations, Mom.