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.

If You Can Read This, I’m Thanking Some Teachers

My son is a high school senior, and like many parents at this juncture, I’ve been the proud parent at numerous awards programs over the years.

The best one yet? The one where I was most proud? That would be the one where he didn’t win a thing.

We spent Sunday afternoon at the Fayette County Public Schools’ annual FAME Awards, which recognize exceptional teachers, counselors and coaches. The winners are nominated by seniors, who are invited to write an essay about the educator who has been most influential to their success.

There were 86 honorees and 104 nominators (some multiples), and the students read snippets of their essays. From my son, Alex, we heard about Beth McKenzie, the Paul Laurence Dunbar High School teacher who taught him AP US Government and nurtured his love of national politics. She was the one who encouraged him to run for student council president, and is the adviser now helping ensure that neither he nor others regret that decision. She teaches him the value of hard work through example. And most of all, she has been instrumental in helping him grow from an introverted sophomore to a self-assured senior headed to Yale in the fall.

Alex and Beth McKenzie, after the ceremony

 

As Ms. McKenzie stood on the stage to receive her accolades, I got to thinking about how at that moment she represented every good teacher – and there have been many – that Alex has had from kindergarten to 12th grade in Fayette County. I was thinking too, about how I have never regretted my decision to stick with public school despite its detractors.

 

And there were detractors. Those who said that he’d never get the personalized attention he would at a private school. That he wouldn’t be challenged. Or worse yet, that he might not survive the hallways of middle school.

Hogwash. All of it.

Alex’s passage through Fayette County Public Schools has been, well, pretty much ideal. In 13 years, I can recall only one or two school employees who didn’t exhibit knowledge, dedication, compassion and responsiveness. That goes for Julius Marks Elementary (kindergarten through 2nd grade), JR Ewan Elementary (grades 3-5), Winburn Middle School (6-8) and PL Dunbar (9-12).

Full disclosure: Alex has the one-two punch of intelligence and self-motivation, and has been in an accelerated magnet program since third grade. I’m grateful that there were such options, and that those options existed within the public school system.

I’m grateful, too, for the many educators (underappreciated and underpaid) who fueled his interest in literature, math, history and politics, or rather, for learning in general. The French writer Anatole France had it right when he said, “Nine-tenths of education is encouragement.”

So it makes sense that as Alex and I look back at the teachers in his past, the most memorable are those who did just that. Such as Betsy Biddle, the 2nd grade assistant teacher at Julius Marks Elementary who led a reading discussion group with Alex and two other advanced readers. She accomplished what I considered impossible: she got Alex to love reading even more than he already did. Her care and attention included mailing him handwritten cards of encouragement throughout that year and afterward. I don’t think it’s overstating to say that his academic success was born at that table in the back of the classroom. The year after, he broke JR Ewan’s Accelerated Reader school record with 736 points. (A record, he reminds me, will forever stand because the school no longer exists.)

Homecoming Queen Crowning Practice

In middle school, there was English with Chad Peavler, who turned him on to To Kill a Mockingbird; math with Devin Onkst, where he learned the quadratic formula song to the theme of Pop Goes the Weasel; and US History with Theresa Buczek, who took him to the national level of the National History Day competition.

At PL Dunbar, the quality of teaching is unparalleled. Among those teachers: Beverly Smith, who runs the Math, Science and Technology Center like it’s her baby (a super smart, well-cared for, baby); Paula Azzarito, who turned Alex’s favorite subject into his favorite classes: AP World History and AP US History; Kara Patterson, whose always sunny disposition is infectious even at a daily 7:25 a.m. calculus class; and Ben Zimmerman, who is so organized and so thorough that no second of AP Spanish is wasted.

Alex told me the story recently about how, in freshman English, he made an exceptionally good point and the teacher remarked, “You must have had a great teacher in the past.”

The truth is, he’s had a lot of great teachers. And we’re both very grateful.