Savta’s Graduation

This year, five of my grandchildren are graduating. B"H. Mazel tov. Two from high school and three from elementary school.

Naturally, everyone is focused on the graduates. There will be ceremonies, speeches, photographs, hugs, and enough cake to feed a small country — assuming, of course, you made the guest list.

(A topic for another essay: graduation tickets are apparently rationed like milk during the war. Three tickets, five tickets, never quite enough to go around. And somehow it’s always the grandparents who quietly volunteer to sit this one out. Which is fair, really. We had our turn. We sat through our own children’s graduations, performances, and several questionable haircuts in between. Let the siblings have the seats. Let them be the ones who get to stare at their brother or sister crossing that stage and think, that’s going to be me someday. We’ll be home, holding down the fort and the apple chips, perfectly content.)

I’M GRADUATING TOO

But I feel like I’m graduating too.

The high schoolers are deep in conversations about careers, national service, learning — all very serious, very adult, very forward-looking. They are gazing into the future.

I, meanwhile, am gazing into the past. Not sadly. Just with a sort of stunned “wait, when did this happen?” squint.

These are the same children who once sat on my couch eating snacks and playing board games. The same children who begged for just one more story. The same children who considered an afternoon with Savta the single greatest entertainment option available to mankind. Now they have friends. Plans. Phones. Lives.

Apparently, I am no longer the center of the social universe. I would like to formally note that I was not consulted about this decision. I assume there was a meeting.

The elementary school graduates are not much better. They’ve entered that mysterious in-between age - practicing for high school the way understudies practice for a part they haven’t been cast in yet.

Suddenly they are very busy. Very cool. Very above it all.

Rummikub with Savta now loses to hanging out with friends. A kiss in public has become a diplomatic incident requiring advance written notice. And being “shmooshed” - once a privilege, like a royal title - has been quietly revoked, no explanation given.

The children are graduating from childhood. And I am graduating from being the grandmother of little children.

BECOMING SOMEONE NEW

At first this made me sad. Then I realized something: every stage of grandparenting requires us to become somebody new. (Nobody warns you about this. There should be a pamphlet.)

First we are grandparents of babies. Then of toddlers. Then come the playgrounds, the storybooks, the sleepovers, the game nights, and the truly heroic quantities of nosh.

And then, before we’re quite ready, the job changes.

Perhaps it means fewer board games and more coffee dates. Fewer bedtime stories and more real conversations. Fewer hugs in public, more texts that simply say, “Hi.”

(In their language, that’s a big deal. It means they paused, mid-conversation, while sitting on the steps with friends laughing at who knows what, to think of me for one second. That one second means more than they could possibly know.)

Well, I’m still figuring it out. But then again, so are they. Which is a comforting thought.

GROWING UP AT EVERY AGE

Maybe growing up isn’t something that only happens to children. Maybe grandparents have to keep growing too - finding new ways to love people who no longer fit in our laps, but who will always fit in our hearts.

The good news is that I still have a few little ones around who think the couch, the swing, and the park are their happy place. So, I haven't been entirely retired. 

I’ve simply been promoted to the next stage - a stage I didn’t apply for, but am apparently very qualified for, having already survived several stages with their parents.

Because really, what greater blessing is there than watching the children you love become exactly who they were always meant to be?  

I may miss the little hands, the bedtime stories, the days when visiting Savta was a special occasion. But I would not trade the joy of watching them grow - not even for one more uninterrupted hour of “Ticket to Ride”, and not even for a graduation ticket.

So mazal tov, my dear graduates. You are beginning a new chapter. And it seems Savta is too. We’ll learn this one together.

The Past Three Months Have Been Harder Than I Realized

The kumquat tree missed them.

On Friday afternoon my newly-seven-year old grandson climbed the garden wall of our home and almost ran into my arms. I burst out in giant loud messy sobs. He stopped so short that smoke came out of his sneakers, and he anxiously eyed me top to bottom, sure that I must be bleeding somewhere.

I started apologizing (by this time his eight-year-old sister was beside him, watching me scare my grandchildren with my wailing). Choking on my sobs, I told them, “Savta is just so happy to see you at my home. I missed you all so much. My house missed you. My kumquat tree missed you. The toys missed you. I'm sorry. I can’t stop crying, because I am grateful.”

Absolutely frozen, they watched me in silence - a bit afraid, a bit weirded out, a bit pity-filled for Savta. And I realized that the past three months have been harder on me than I realized.

Like the rest of you, I spent more than two months in self-isolation – not leaving the house, not seeing my friends or family, not participating in any real-world activities. I zoomed. I whatsapped. I facebooked. I even worked a little. B”H for my heroic husband (ad 120 beyachad) and wonderful kids who shopped for us. B"H for exciting screen door visits.

HEY, WHERE IS EVERYBODY?

Mostly, I watched a deserted world at my front door, as I prayed in my rocking chair. (Wow, that does sound like an old lady from some novel, but truthfully, we had been left behind in a ghost town.)

And I observed, as life transformed over the weeks - from me alone with my birds, to one person walking through the street on Shabbat, to three kids and a dog, to a few couples and a family here and there, and then this past week, voila…a busy exciting bustle passing my door.

I did everything I was told. The day the Health Ministry said we could go out (of course, with our masks), I tremulously and hesitatingly walked out my door, holding my brave husband’s hand. When they said we could visit our grandchildren, but at a distance, my husband and I jumped in the car and visited every single grand/kid immediately. We even brought “We-love-balloons.” We just wanted to see their faces in living color sans-screen, even if not up close.

THE SHOCK OF REALITY

But nothing could prepare me for the sight of my cherished little people climbing up my wall. I am still overcome with emotion, thinking how much we (the protected part of the population) have suffered more than the rest of the world at-large from lack of interaction with our grandchildren.
Thank G-d, they are back in our lives.

An amazing outdoor get-together (with masks, except for eating and smiling.)

And still, we older folks probably won’t totally heal until that day comes when we can hug those little people that we love and smother them with kisses. May it come soon.
PS - thank you to the folks who worked to keep us healthy and safe. xoxo