One of Ours
By
Joan Shaddox Isom
My
niece told me it's a good thing I don't have grandchildren. "You
would keep them overnight and feed them peanut butter and pickle
sandwiches, watch scary movies with them until dawn, and then
take them to Braum's for an ice cream breakfast," she said. Sounds
good to me.
I don't
think about grandchildren much unless I'm at a party and grandparents
start passing around photos. Once, I slipped a picture of Ebony,
my black Chow Chow, into the deluge of fat, naked baby pictures
that were circling the room . My dog had an amazing likeness to
a black bear cub when she was small, and she reads minds and knows
when we are getting ready to drive somewhere, facts I find more
intriguing than Heather's new tooth or Mikey's vocal prowess.
But I usually restrain myself, limiting my comments to one penciled
caption at the bottom of Ebony's photo: "She can already go like
a bow-wow."
What
sort of grandparent would I be? Would I feel compelled to follow
my darling to school and lurk in the shrubbery outside his room,
making sure he got his turn to clean the hamster cage? And when
it came time for the PTA performances, would he get a part with
at least two lines, and not be assigned the non-speaking role
of a willow tree or corn shock? And if he didn't get a starring
role, I like to think I'd be supportive and comforting. Imaginary
conversations with my fictitious grandson run through my head.
"Well," I'd console him, "you may not have any lines, but you
can sway, can't you? Be the best dang willow tree that school
has ever seen!"
In
all fairness, I admit I might be an overprotective grandparent.
If this same mythical grandson wanted to spend the night with
a pal, I'd have to find a reason to drop by his friend's house
prior to the visit and scrutinize the situation. Do they fail
to sterilize the cutting board after preparing raw chicken? Checking
the smoke alarm batteries would only take a moment, and if I wore
a cap, pulled low, and white coveralls with a big official-looking
emblem of some sort, I figure I could gain admittance into just
about any home. My stepladder would help too.
Looking
at the positive side of not having grandchildren, never will I
be blamed because a granddaughter inherited the dreaded family
nose. Passing on to a grandchild my total vacuum in the part of
the brain that governs mathematical ability will never lie heavily
on my conscience.
And
never will I overhear, "What do you expect? His grandmother has
a standing account at The Chocolate Box. Look at her if you wonder
why he's such a chubby!"
But
this grandkid business is a moot point since our one surviving
child, a daughter who married at age thirty-nine, has no children.
Early on, she talked to her husband and they made that decision
together. She lives in a large city eighty miles away and chooses
to focus on the battered women whom she counsels. As their therapist,
Lyn fights fiercely for her clients. With their permission, she
scours the docket of attorneys in her city who will take battered
women's cases pro bono. She grieves with these women when the
courts send their children back to the abusers. She rejoices with
them when they save enough money to rent their own small apartment.
She tells them they are beautiful, and I know they are, despite
the black eyes, bruises and missing teeth that some have from
relationships turned violent. Our daughter's time is devoted,
not to her own children, but to her ever-expanding group of young
women who are trying to make better lives for themselves and their
children.
It's
fun to play grandma now and then. The two boys who live in the
house behind ours, just beyond a patch of woods, come by every
summer. They ask if they can ride their mountain bikes inside
our fence. I say yes, and watch as they launch themselves from
the pile of top soil or jolt down the bumpy slope. Sometimes they
fish in the pond. I sit on the deck, close my eyes and listen
to their bell-like voices as they pull out tiny perch. I smile,
knowing their grandparents, not I, will have to clean and cook
their catch. They go home from these fishing expeditions about
dark, giving me a wave as they disappear up the trail, holding
aloft a couple of minnows with all the pride of Jason fetching
home the golden fleece.
And
I'm left in the silence of a childless domain. But somehow it
seems right. There's my husband sitting in his chair reading the
paper, waiting for me to come in and we'll make a simple supper
and eat it on trays in the living room where we can watch the
sky change colors as evening comes on.
Later,
we'll call our daughter and she will fill us in on the progress
of the young women we privately refer to as "Lyn's girls." Never
telling us their names, for that would be a breach of confidence,
she reports on their accomplishments as a mother would do. "I
was able to talk a dentist into donating dentures for one woman,
and she found a job the next day." Or, "Another is holding her
head up more and looking people in the eye. And one even landed
an acting job in some TV commercials!"
She's
turned to us a few times for help. "Mom, Dad, there's this woman
who has been court-ordered to attend therapy group. Problem is,
she doesn't have any money for gas." We'll never have the opportunity
to slip a grandkid some gas money when she's going out with her
friends, but we're glad to send a few dollars to fill some of
these empty tanks now and then. It's mandatory that these surrogate
granddaughters remain faceless and nameless to my husband and
me in order to protect their privacy.
Yet
sometimes when we're watching television and see a commercial
for some product or another, and a vigorous young woman is hiking
up a mountain trail, looking confident enough to conquer the world
or at least any grizzly bear she might encounter, l know we're
both thinking the same thing: Could that be one of ours?
Joan
Shaddox Isom is the author of The
First Starry Night (Charlesbridge) and coeditor of The
Leap Years: Women Reflect on Change, Loss and Love (Beacon
Press). Isom's fiction, poetry and plays have won awards, and
her work has appeared in numerous publications, including anthologies.
Of Cherokee descent, Isom lives near Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
