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When Gran Folded in the Chair

Posted on September 1, 2023 by susanrray

A long-time favorite feature in Reader’s Digest magazine is Laughter, The Best Medicine.  It’s aptly named.  According to Mayo Clinic medical experts, laughing increases our intake of oxygen, stimulates our heart and circulation, and muscles relax immediately.  And there are long-term effects:  improved immune system, pain relief, lessen stress and anxiety, and better self-esteem.

            A giggle and chuckle can turn into uncontrollable laughing. You’ve done it – laughed so hard you couldn’t talk.  Couldn’t catch your breath. Tears rolled and laughter overtook breathing.  Couldn’t talk.  One such time that I could only nod and inhale sharply to get a breath was in June, near the end of the best week of this summer.

I wrote about the Heart Hugs when Son’s and Daughter’s families and Husband and I spent a week together at a Florida beach. I told about our Grands playing and the fun things we did, but the funniest happening was the most unexpected. 

It’s what one Grand remembered recently while we ate breakfast together.  I often read poems with our Grands and that morning a poetry book lay on the kitchen table. My Grand flipped pages searching for her favorite poems; she giggled and then asked if I’d saved the poem that I wrote while we were at the beach.  I did.

“First,” she said, “I want to read Daddy Fell into the Pond.”  What a fun poem to read aloud: Everyone grumbled. There was nothing to do and nothing to say.  It was the end of a dismal day.  But everything changed when Daddy fell into the pond. 

Alfred Noyes wrote about a dad, and I copied his style to write what happened when I didn’t sit as I expected in a lightweight low-seat beach chair.  I just wanted to sit with Husband and my Grand’s parents and watch the Grands play as the sun set.

When Gran Folded in the Chair

Younger Grands splashed in the ocean

Dug holes in the sand.

Big Kids floated on the waves.

Parents relaxed, standing and seated

Near the water’s edge.

It was the calm end of a beach day

THEN Gran folded in the chair!

Daughter leaped

Are you okay?

Alarmed teenage Grands came to help.

With knees to chin,

And bottom on the sand,

Gran hee-hawed, nodded, closed her eyes.

Daughter laughed and slapped her knees

WHEN Gran folded in the chair!

Pop said Quick, get a picture, quick!

Daughter 2 dutifully complied.

Daughter and Gran lost their breaths

Laughed uncontrollably.

All around, young and old

Stopped and looked.

There wasn’t a person who didn’t respond

WHEN Gran folded in the chair!

Even now, I chuckle.  For a good dose of laughing medicine, I look at Daughter 2’s pictures. Maybe I’ll send When Gran Folded in the Chair to Reader’s Digest, but the pictures – those are private.

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A Young Grand’s Love

Posted on March 1, 2018 by susanrray

“GRAN!” Jesse screams as he jumps down the backdoor steps at his house. I spread my arms wide and my 3 year-old Grand runs to me. He jumps. I lift him and he wraps his legs around my waist and buries his head in my shoulder.

“Oh, Jesse, I’m so happy to hug you!” I say. Just as happy as I was the day before when he ran to me.

These are the times grandparents must never forget. Must cherish. Almost every time Husband or I see Jesse he asks, “Go to Pop and Gran’s house today?” And he accepts our frequent answer, “Not today, Jesse. Would you like to come another day?” He smiles and screams, “Yes!” Another day can be tomorrow or a day next week.

Jesse has a routine when he visits Husband’s and my house by himself. He climbs the steps to the upstairs playroom. “Come on!” he says. He sets the 1970s Fisher Price plastic garage on a low table and dumps the matchbox cars out of a basket. He parks each car in a blue or red space and counts them. “1, 2, 3, 4,” he says. Then he counts again, “1, 7, 5, 2.”

“Let’s read books now,” my Grand says as he runs to the kids’ bookshelf.   He chooses the same books every time: Look Out for Mater and Tales from the Track, both about the red car Lightening McQueen and his car friends. He throws the books onto the couch. “Sit here, Gran!” he says and slaps beside the books. I sit and he crawls onto my lap.

My Grand laughs aloud when Mater, a brown tow truck travels down a curvy road backwards. And whispers “Shhh” when Big Bull, a monster-sized bulldozer, sleeps. Before I finish reading the second book, Husband comes into the playroom. “Poppy!” Jesse shouts and crawls out of my lap, holds the book, and runs to Husband. Poppy, Jesse’s love name for Husband. Seven other Grands call him Pop, but Jesse coined Poppy, and now it’s his turn to read aloud.

No matter the time of day or how long the visit, Jesse wants a snack. “I’m hungry,” he says. He carries a booster seat to a kitchen chair and fastens its safety belt around his waist. He peels a tangerine, and like most toddlers, stuffs his mouth full and then talks. “Cookies! Can I have cookies?” he says. His snacks are always the same: a tangerine, cookies, and water. Water in a blue plastic cup and a blue straw.

When it’s time for me to take my Grand home, he runs to Husband. “Bye, Poppy,” and holds his arms up to be lifted. If Husband simply hugs, Jesse reminds him to kiss-hug and wiggles to the floor after each kisses the other’s cheek.

Jesse’s greetings and kiss-hugs won’t last much longer. Soon he’ll do as his older siblings who casually say, “Hi, Gran” or wave half-heartedly. But I remember, they too, ran to me when they were toddlers.

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Her Other Name is Gran

Posted on September 27, 2017 by susanrray

Elaine and I splashed in the sea, not the ocean, the sea, according to my six-year-old Grand. We held hands, jumped waves, watched tiny fish swim, buried our toes in the sandy sea floor and marveled that we could see our feet through the clear water of the gulf beach.

When a girl, about ten years old, joined us, Elaine welcomed her by talking about the fish. “What’s your name?” I asked. She said her name was Chelsea. I said, “I’m Susan.”

My Grand picked up the social cue. “I’m Elaine and her other name is Gran,” she said as she splashed water with both hands toward me. And in that moment, I realized I’m no longer Susan, Daughter, Mother. I’m Gran.

Yes, I’ve been a grandparent for more than twelve years, but somehow until Elaine’s announcement, I didn’t think of myself first as a grandparent. My immediate thought was I’m glad I chose Gran, a name I like.

As I reflect on a recent beach trip with Husband and Grands and their parents, I chuckle to myself that it was my coming-out-grandparent week. I embraced the grandmother role. While the Grands and their parents took a lunch break from the beach, Husband and I sat under an umbrella and relished the relative quiet and calm. We watched a family of four with a toddler and arm-holding baby at the water’s edge. The mother held baby and tried to dig into the sand with her toddler. Giving up, she laid baby on a beach chair under an umbrella, and my grandmother instincts kicked in.

“I’ll be glad to hold your baby if you want to play in the water. I’m sitting beside your umbrella,” I said.

The mother smiled and told me she thought her baby was sleepy. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” she asked. Mind?

“How about I hold him for a few minutes and see how it goes,” I said. So I settled in a beach chair and the mother explained that 7-month old Jonathan liked to watch people. His back against my chest so he could see his mother and my arms wrapped around him, Jonathan was asleep in five minutes. For an hour, I had the perfect excuse not to move.

Then there was the day that my Grands paddled an ocean kayak. “Gran, do you want to go for a ride?” my twelve-year-old Grand asked. David had proved himself capable, first with his dad, then with younger sisters. An ocean kayak ride would be a first for me. “All you have to do is sit in the front. I’ll paddle,” David said.

So I settled on the seat, propped my feet in the footholds, and we sailed away. “How far out do you want to go?” David asked. I shrugged. “Okay, just remember to sit still. Don’t lean to one side quickly.”

This is the last of four September columns to celebrate and honor grandparents. How appropriate that Elaine nailed my identity as Gran for the finale.

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