We are older now than we ever dreamed we'd be, my childhood friend Rosemary and I. When we were children, best friends forever, Rose pricking her finger to seal the vow, me chickening out, we imagined a lot of things. But never this. Grandparents were what we had, not what we would grow up to be. It wasn't conceivable that we could be so old.
We were certain that youth was eternal. Someday we would be 16 and then someday we would be 20, and we'd be able to stay up as late as we wanted and eat dessert first and wear red lipstick and maybe go to Hollywood and be discovered in a drugstore like Lana Turner.
It didn't matter that we hardly knew our way across town. We dreamed these dreams anyway.
We talked about getting married and having kids, of course. That's what little girls did. But it was all talk, because what we really believed is that we would never grow up. Like Peter Pan, we would stay young forever.
Time Stands Still
This made sense in a weird way because time back then wasn't like it is now. From fourth grade to fifth wasn't a year, it was a lifetime. From Thanksgiving to Christmas was forever. Even the few hours from Christmas Eve to Christmas morning were interminable. Days dawdled and months meandered and so did we. We sashayed our way through second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth grade, talking and playing and dreaming.
No one told us that it wouldn't always be like this, that hours and days and months and years are like people — they eventually shrink. And that someday, no matter how fast we ran, time would outpace us.
I don't know who takes the mental snapshots that immortalize the long days of childhood, the ones that live in our heads forever. And I don’t know why some days stand out as vivid as HDTV.
But they do.
Here we are, Rose and I, 11 years old, cutting through our neighbors' yards to play on the swings at Jean and Joan Betty's house. Everyone is away on this day, which is warm and still and perfect, no bugs, just sun and clear blue sky.
Here we are, two little girls in shorts and halter tops, one with hair as straight as string, the other with hair as curly as reused yarn, swinging side-by-side, swinging higher and higher on metal swings, laughing, jumping, until we're sprawled on the ground, sneakers off, barefoot and smiling.
| Do you see being a grandparent as a great "do-over"? |
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Absolutely; it's great to play again 83.1%
Nope; I love the kids, but there's no fountain of youth 16.9%
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It was before the new Randolph Junior High School was built, before seventh grade would separate Rosemary and me, before we had an inkling that days like this are precious.
A Second Chance
But someone knew. Someone must have because this afternoon still exists.
Even when the radio is screaming in the now in the next room. Even when I look in the mirror. Even though so much time has passed that it's my children’s children I watch swinging side by side, I can still see Rosemary and me, our backs arched, our heads back, our legs straight out, pumping and laughing.
We were seven when we met. We have been children together and teenagers and young adults and wives and mothers and working women and, unbelievably, now we are full-fledged grandmothers.
We believed that nothing could be better than being a kid. We believed that nothing would ever come close to the childhood we shared.
But, amazingly, being a grandmother does. Spending time with our grandchildren. Watching them. Loving them. Playing with them. Going to their soccer games and school concerts. Kicking the leaves. Reading to them. Listening to them read. Singing songs. Making up songs. Coloring. Drawing. Creating a farm out of Play-Doh. Taking them to a real farm. Monopoly. Go Fish. Snow White and Peter Pan.
These are all back in our lives.
Being a grandmother is a great big do-over.
Here we are, Rose and I, older than we ever imagined, yes, but like the children we were, dawdling, sashaying, playing, dreaming, happy to be back where we started, happy to be a kid again.
Read more from great authors on the joys of grandparenting:
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