IT'S A GRAND THING

GRAND

A few years ago I first became a grandmother and it opened a few doors into the tangled corridors of my thoughts. Firstly, I felt a bit–well- old; and not only because I was sleeping with a grandfather. But it didn’t bother me that much. Because I am, after all, a Boomer, so therefore will be young forever. OK?

Then I quickly realized that I had no Booba experience, role models, mentors etc to tell me what to do. I had no grandmothers. I had no mother.

I had no grandparents because, on my father’s side, they perished in the war (‘Killed by the Nazi murderers’, as my father z”l was wont to put it). And on my mother’s side, heart disease took her father and cancer took her mother, and that was that.

My mother also passed away when my eldest children were very young, so she gained little experience in the Booba role.

So no grandparents. And because most of my school friends were children of Holocaust survivors, nobody had grandparents. A grandparent was like a mythical creature one read about in books; perhaps a benign, wise, grey bearded Zeida, or a plump, flour-dusted, be-aproned, huggable Booba. They might as well have been unicorns or hobbits.

So after years of navigating the unknown seas of parenting, with not much help from living people but some from books and parenting classes, I suddenly found myself thrust in the role of Grandma and having absolutely no idea what that actually meant, except in the most abstract of terms. Are there any books on how to be a good Gran?

I’m winging it. The ones that live close by come for dinner at least once a week, babies nap here so Mum can finish a diploma course, there’s always lots of food in the fridge and pantry. I have a cot, a high chair, car seats, a stroller, toys, nappies, wipes; all the paraphernalia of parenting that I had shed so gleefully only a few years ago. I have a heightened sense of responsibility since my American daughter-in-law’s parents (can I please say machutonim?) live in Pittsburgh so I have to be more than a mother-in-law to her. My own daughters married American boys and live in the US or Israel, so I try to be a glamorous long distance Booba who visits once or twice a year, laden with gifts. I Skype.  It all doesn’t feel enough, but then I don’t know what enough is.

And I have to remember that I don’t have to be the heavy! I’m allowed to be the provider of snacks and goodies- without totally undermining parents of course. I do insist on ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ though. And Brachot, which is like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to Hashem.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am a doctor, so I also shine lights down ears and throats and poke at painful things; health is the major currency of communication between my kids and I, but this time around I’ll try to remember the hugs too. I’m Doctor Booba!

I think I’m looking forward to taking my oldest granddaughter out for coffee and a chat. But between then and now, it’ll have to be dinners, Shabbat and Yom Tov meals, Sunday brunches, occasional sleepovers, birthday parties, admiring crayon drawings and sundry crafted objects, watching (but not participating in) jumping on the trampoline, reading stories, and that sounds like plenty to me. I don’t do outings to crowded events or sporty things and I’m over the Play-doh. But I’m working on the hugs.