The Grandbaby

You know how it is when you buy a certain model of car and suddenly you see them everywhere? Well, that’s the way it is with me right now. Only they aren’t cars and I didn’t buy anything, and they are definitely not all the same as mine.

Announcement to the universe: I have my first grandbaby, a blue-eyed, brown-haired clone of his dad. Now, let’s be clear here. I was not sitting around pining for one anymore than I was sitting around pining for his dad 34 years ago.

I have always believed that whether my children had children was entirely up to them, and that neither their lives nor mine would be less if they didn’t have any. I have friends with grandchildren, lots of them. And they wax on and on about them, their funny little quirks, what they said, what they did. I love the stories but somehow I never thought, if I had a grandchild, that I would be that kind of grandmother.

And so I am surprised to find myself in the middle of conversations with friends, casual acquaintances, and even outright strangers suddenly blurting out, “Oh, I have a grandson. Wanna see a picture?” Meaning, of course, don’t you want to see the most beautiful baby the world has ever seen—also the funniest, smartest, strongest. I think I even sometimes say all that.

After each uncontrollable blurt, I always apologize. Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll get over it. I won’t be bringing his pictures everywhere for the rest of my life. Really, I won’t. But honestly I’m not so sure about that.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this grandmother role. I will be the away grandmother. His other one lives three doors down from him and his wonderful mother, who sings “dancing” songs to him in the bath as he slops water everywhere, and the extraordinary dad, who can’t get enough of changing diapers.

The mom’s side of the family has real active grandmothering ingrained in them. My family, not so much. I only had three models: Grandma Katie, who came every year for Thanksgiving and took over my bedroom for three days; Nanny who never spoke English or came to our house, but gave us sweet honey-dripping baklava when we visited her twice a year in her apartment across town; and Nana, my mother, who adored my children but never had, I believe, a real conversation with any of them. I am sure none of these women ever said “I love you” to any of their grands.

I don’t want to be Grandma or Nanny or Nana, and so I am Ama. I’m maximizing the possibility that my grandson will be able to call me by name pretty easily, and that I’ll create my own version of grandmotherhood, one that will let this boy know me even though I live 11 hours away and will see him as rarely as my models saw theirs.

Meanwhile, my days are filled with babies—pacifier babies, thumb-sucking babies, found-my-toes babies, the criers and laughers, the wailers and gurglers, the quiet, soulful ones, and the outrageously gregarious ones. I have suddenly been equipped with baby radar. But, honestly, of all the hundreds and hundreds I have seen and smiled at, commented on, not one is as beautiful, as funny, as strong, as smart, as independent as the one into whose tiny ear I will whisper “I love you” over and over again.

Writer and visual artist Annaliese Jakimides lives and works in an apartment in downtown Bangor.