Grannies

Thanksgiving Day minus two. Shopping at the local Trader Joe's is crowded, parking lot offering valet service. Holiday business looking brisk. Pushing the cart and then I hear a child calling "Grandma" and I catch myself tearing up. The little girl's clear voice, a bell on a freeway, cutting through the rumble. Something in me went limp and I had to pause for a moment and remember I had serious ginger cookie hunting on hand and look smart about it. Grabbed the last bag on the shelf, and ready to try out a new ginger cookie crust pumpkin tart recipe. When you can't have a granny at your holiday table, at least you can try a new dish- I try to comfort myself with this thought.

Later at the checkout, perhaps it was the same grandma and little girl, I don't know, but a melodious grandma's voice behind me was telling a little girl how everyone would think she was just the most precious and beautiful thing they had ever seen. I turned to look at them, the grandma in velvet sweats, short neat hair, nice makeup, slender and spry, the little girl about four years old, beaming, mesmerized by her grandma's words. My immediate thought: I want that grannie for my kids, even if they are approaching middle age. And, I wanted to start an agency, Rent-a-Gran and have her be the first one to sign up. Then, I thought of my own granny, the one who owned a sweetie shop in Glasgow and left me in charge at the age of seven while she went to the pub on the corner "for a wee while". Customers complained about the wrong change I gave them, she complained to my mother, my mother blamed the inferior English education system, and I was fired by my own grannie. I've never been the same since, of course. I could tell you all sorts of stories. But I'm grateful for the spine it gave me, in the end, because that's what I think happened. Steel magnolia and all that.

But still I began to yearn for a granny like the one in the line at T.J's, just for a few hours on the holidays, you know, to give the extra dimension to the family that seems to be missing, the gaping Granny Corner. I'm in line for Grannyship but nobody is doing much about it and it's not as if I can do an invitro job on my daughter when she's not looking or demand that my son settle for Miss Right Now. So I just have to enjoy the secretly snatched granny moments, as if I'm walking past a bakery and smelling a pie I can't eat because I'm allergic to the gluten in the flour, which actually does happen. I'm glad at least someone's enjoying what I can't have and now I have to buy a new lipstick for my very stiff upper lip. Happy Thanksgiving.