Grandma Knows Best

My grandparents relocated to towns far away from mine when I was very young, so my experience of grandparents was an at-a-distance relationship. My grandparents were never able to come to my dance recitals, speech competitions, graduations, or weddings. I never doubted my grandparents loved me, in fact I have many good memories of them all, but there is a disconnect that comes from only really knowing the day-to-dayness of family members through letters (when people actually wrote them), photos (always a bit dissatisfying in their two-dimensions), and phone calls (accompanied by watching the clock to keep expenses down). Often that disconnect leaves us wistful or even sad, but sometimes it evidences itself in circumstances that can’t be called anything but hilarious. Like gifts sent in the spirit of great love, but that don’t match the person at all. One Christmas, my brother Todd, who was twelve, got a crocheted vest from my grandmother that was only big enough for a six year-old and had a huge picture of Bert from Sesame Street on it. Now that’s funny. And absurd. But those things happen when families scatter geographically, and you can either laugh at them or feel disenfranchised. Not that having your grandparents close by means that you never get your wires crossed either. In Jan Brett’s classic The Mitten, Nicki insists the mittens his grandma is knitting be white even though she thinks they’ll get lost in the snow…which one promptly does. Maybe it’s just a generation thing.


http://www.amazon.com/Mitten-Jan-Brett/dp/039921920X

http://www.janbrett.com/