Today's Grandmother

 

Back when my grandson was in grade school with his siblings, he asked me to come have lunch with him for Grandparents Day at school.  His little sisters asked my Mother to be their guest.  That day I traveled the hallways making my way to his classroom and passed children lining up for lunch.  They were saying in not-so-hushed tones, “It’s a soldier.”, and they would want a high-five.  Walking into my grandson’s classroom , I got the same thing and lots of high-fives.  In the cafeteria, I sat with my grandson and his buddies who asked me all kinds of questions that come from boys who are just starting to have testosterone flow through their bodies.  “Do you drive tanks?”  “Do you fly jets?”  “How many push-ups can you do?”  “Do you have your own gun?”  Their minds came up with all kinds of questions, wanting to know everything they could.  They thought being a soldier was so cool.  My grandson just beamed because his grandma wears combat boots.   

I retired USAF/ANG as of 2006 and left the total workforce in 2009.  I have worked or volunteered my time all my life.  I had been a non-card carrying civilian for five years of my entire life, so I really don’t know much else other than the military.  My grandchildren’s other grandparents parents were retired and home bodies by then.  I did not fit the mold of anybody else’s grandmother.  (In actuality, I didn’t fit a mold to be anybody’s mother either, but I did it twice.)  My three grandchildren in school would call me every Veterans’ Day to thank me for my service.  I loved those phone calls.  My military girl friends who were also grandmothers had their grandchildren leading the same type of life, calling them on Veterans’ Day, inviting them to their schools, hanging out with our military families on Family Day at the Base.  We didn’t just raise our children out there, we raised a lot of our grandchildren there, as well. 

My grandchildren know the value of being an American citizen, even if they did not learn it in their public schools.  They keep up with what’s going on in the world because they know, in their own way, that grandma will know what to do if sh#$ hits the fan. 

My youngest grandchild was born after I totally retired.  I am now a full-time grandmother and I am enjoying every bit of it.  The youngest knows that grandma was a soldier, but she doesn’t really know what that means.  I’ve always been her Pee Wee since she learned how to say that name for me.  She has seen pictures of me in uniform, but she will never know the other life I lived that her nephew and nieces lived through with me.  This is a whole new life for me, and for the youngest grandchild. 

When I was a kid, whenever we came to see my paternal grandparents at their mid-town apartment in the city, I always viewed my grandmother as a beautiful Southern belle who always wore pretty dresses, wore pretty make-up, had good-smelling perfume, and would cook my favorite southern food (sweet potato casserole with marshmallows).  All my grandmother’s friends, who were also grandmothers, dressed in her same style.  My grandmother would take us kids to the zoo or we would go to Court Square to feed the pigeons and squirrels.  I never really knew anything that my grandmother did other than clean the apartment, buy groceries and take care of grandpa.  I don’t think she ever sweat; that wasn’t lady-like.  When she passed away in 1970 at the age of 70, she was still a Southern belle who smelled good and had perfect make-up.  I still never heard of my grandmother being anything more than a grandmother.  That was my definition of a grandmother back then. 

 

Here I am now, a second-generation grandmother.  I am calling it that because there is a reasonable age disparity between my three older grandchildren and the youngest one.  The oldest three saw me in my active, bad-a$$ mode.  The youngest grandchild thinks of me as a play toy.  I’m more her size, so she likes to play with me.  I take her to museums and book stores, and we pretend-play a lot. 

I am so lucky to be able to have grandchildren at all their ages, and this has given me the opportunity to live out and build another phase in my long life.