And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
Oh, I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. My one and only grandchild, my granddaughter, turned 13 this week. I picked her up from school, we drove to Starbucks, and…we had coffee together. Well, to be fair, she had a Strawberry Acai Lemonade Refresher. But she does Starbucks. And she did it with me.
Years ago, my oldest son got married before I turned 50. I had my first 3 kids at a pretty young age (23, 25, 26), given the era, and so I was still relatively young when they all started pairing up. I quietly, but vehemently, told my son that if he made me a grandmother before I was 50, I would remove the apparatus that made me a grandmother.
He listened. He made me a grandmother when I was 52.
I really wasn’t sure about being a grandmother. My grandmothers both wore housedresses. They looked like grandmothers. They puttered. I loved Grandma Walton, as I love all things Walton, but Grandma Walton looked like a grandmother. To me, grandmothers wore housedresses and aprons, they baked cookies, they sat in rocking chairs and knitted, and they talked about the “olden days”.
I so couldn’t fit myself in that mold. I didn’t know yet that a transformation like that didn’t automatically take place when you became a grandmother.
When my son called and hesitantly told me that I was going to be a grandmother, my response was probably guarded. As much as I love babies and toddlers and children, as evidenced by my having four of them myself, going from being a young mother of three in my twenties, to having my fourth when I turned forty, I found it hard to picture myself doing those stereotyped grandma things. But I did picture myself with an older grandchild. Teenager. Having coffee. Talking about books. Music. Life in general.
With my two daughters, Katie and Olivia, coffee, and particularly Starbucks, became a connection. When they were living with me, and when they weren’t, we still met often at Starbucks. One of my favorite memories of Katie is from her first day as an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Late in the morning, after her first classes, one of which included math, which was her major, she texted me. “I’m sitting by Lake Mendota,” she said, “and I’m drinking a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice latte. I just finished my morning classes. And I am soooooooo happy.” When I received the text, I quickly jumped into my car, drove to Starbucks, got my own drink (grande cinnamon dolce latte with only 2 pumps of cinnamon dolce, blonde espresso) so I could be sharing in her coffee break with her, even from a distance. And even though it wasn’t my usual coffee break time, which falls late afternoon.
Olivia began to join me at Starbucks when she was in middle school. Her Starbucks drink is identical to mine, though she usually takes it as a frappaccino. Michael never drank coffee, and neither does my ex-husband, so it was so nice to find out they inherited the coffee gene from me. My boys, Christopher and Andy, have resisted coffee, but Andy capitulated a few years ago. He is now a coffee connoisseur, and we share new flavors when we discover them. His Starbucks drink is a white chocolate mocha latte. He and I have not yet met in a Starbucks to just sit, sip, and talk, but I’m sure we will.
And then…there was this grandchild. Who just turned 13.
On Christmas day, I asked Maya if she liked Starbucks. “Yes,” she said, nodding vigorously. “She loves Starbucks,” her parents said.
And so an idea, based on a wistful grandmotherly dream, was born.
I picked Maya up from school today, the day after her birthday. We drove to Starbucks, went inside, ordered our drinks, and sat down at a table. Once again, I gazed at a young lovely face across from me. I gave her her birthday presents, we talked and we sipped. Partway through, Olivia joined us.
Once, when Maya was only three years old, she was riding in the back seat of my car and trying to tell me that she was losing her hair. I asked her how. “It’s the srees, Gamma Kaffee,” she said. Maya for a while could not say the letters TR. They came out SR. “The wind blows the srees and the srees take my hair.”
Maya, with hair already down to her hips at the age of three, was not losing her hair. “I don’t understand, Maya Mae,” I said, looking at her through my rearview mirror.
Her sigh encapsulated all the sadness in the universe. She slumped in her car seat. “Nobody gets it, Gamma,” she said.
Not on my watch. This gamma would get it.
She and I talked some more. And gradually, it came out that she’d had an experience, standing by a tree, where the wind blew and a branch snagged her hair. The tree stole a few of her lovely strands.
I reminded her of another conversation we had, also with her in my back seat, and also about trees. “Gamma Kaffee,” she said then. “The srees talk to me.”
“What do they say, Maya?” I asked.
“I love you, Maya,” she said.
With the new backseat story, I said to her, “Remember? The trees love you. So I’m sure it was just an accident. I bet the tree is sorry, Maya Mae.”
And she lit up.
Now, with Maya at 13, entering that rollercoaster time of adolescence, I looked at her, sitting across from me. Her gaze came back to me, strong, even, unwavering. And I thought how I would do anything for this girl.
This grandma, who misses being called Gamma Kaffee, gets it. With Starbucks between us, conversation, and steady gazes, I will continue to get it and make her light up.
Happy birthday, Maya Mae. Katie and Olivia and Andy, let’s have coffee soon. Christopher, get with the program.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
