Grandmother types
I am two months away from being a grandmother. I am over the moon about it.
I am not the stereotypical “grandmotherly” type. Neither was my mother. She didn’t have play tea parties or give my daughter those girly-girl type of dresses with little ruffled socks (that I have to admit are catching my eye these days.)
She didn’t talk down to her. My mother didn’t think my child was the most adorable creature God ever made. But after her death several months ago, my daughter admiringly described her as “my loving, formidable grandmother.” Not bad.
My grandmother, on the other hand, did all “grandmother” things, but I’m not sure I have them in me.
I do know that I will love her like crazy, and unconditionally, As the Lily Tomlin character said to her rotten son in the hilarious movie, Flirting with Disaster, “We’d love you even if you were (murderer/flesh eater) Jeffrey Dahmer!”
I had given up all hope of having a grandchild and felt resigned, but blessed, that I had the gift of one beautiful, feisty, smart kid. But then it happened. And I am beyond thrilled. But I am apprehensive too.
My daughter has always pushed (or shamed) me into a becoming a better, stronger, more empathic, flexible person.
How could you let this happen?
She trashed my rose-colored glasses with her no-bullshit perceptions of rights and wrongs, and her innocent, almost naive protestations about how my generation could make such a mess of things.
The earliest of these was her dismay about the way Mother Earth was taking it on the chin. She actually came home from fifth grade in tears, wanting to know why we adults had “let this happen.” I blamed earlier generations and felt like a shit about it.
I can think through a number of reasons why things are so precipitously damaged. It’s all a matter of fossil fuels, carelessness, greed, climate change etc. But they are excuses. They are not answers to her question — “how did you let it happen?” I choke now, as I did then.
Pull back
And when I think of my granddaughter, I alternate between rabid screams and deep powerless silence.
Because when she sucks her first breath and lets out her first cry, she will become a citizen of a world that is in even worse shape than the accusations I heard a generation ago.
I want my daughter to hear that cry and push her sweet baby back to safety. Away from the questions, the confusion, the amorality we are helplessly comfortable with, even in our disapproval.
Away from being tainted by the automatic elevation of her race and its rewards. Away from the greed, the cavernous wanting, despite what it means to anyone else.
A girl child
Despite my delight at having a female grandchild, I am dizzy at the prospect of her life as a girl child. Things are in such wild crazy flux I can’t even see her future, although it seems bleak.
All I know is that she has fewer rights than I did. Even less. How did we fuck that up? The distrust of the female runs so, so deep. And yes, there are more representatives and achievements, but I am still afraid for her.
That tiny body which we will survey and scour before we pronounce her “perfect” will never be perfect again. She will soon learn to hate a body this culture deems imperfect.
She will realize that her body is not really hers, anyway. It is subject to the whims and hatred of men who have always believed that the beautiful brains of women cannot determine their own fates.
The cost of a bullet
And speaking of bodies, hers will have less value than the cost of a bullet. It is a dangerous, dangerous time. Solutions are clear and yet we are caught in a paralysis for which we have no real excuse.
When I was a young mother and bragging with other young mothers, I recall saying, “I would lift a car off my kid!” What a crock. We can’t even raise holy hell enough to save the life of just one, lovely innocent kid.
The Christening dress
I hold a very faded green box in my hands. Inside is a dress of yards of crisp white fabric are lovingly wrapped in fading tissue. Five generations of my family have been christened in it. I’ve lost count of the actual number of babies. It is amazingly white, so fragile that only devout, careful fingers lift it from the tissues.
All those babies. The ones who bloomed, the ones who grew in joy, the ones who got lost, the ones whose lives were cut short, by others or themselves.
We all began in that gown. We were beautiful and fragile like the gown. And we were welcomed into the world with love and prayer. The people who said those holy words promised to guide and protect us. To shield us from all that defied the sacredness of human life.
Not sacred, like adhering fast to a religion. But holding hard to the reverence of this new treasure that transcends specific faiths.
And sharing hope. Hope that somewhere along the line, I have lost to fear, and cynicism, and the poison of hopelessness. I am not alone.
Please, please. Let us change.
There is no place for baby body armor.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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