The bar for grandmothers is high

But we try

When my Grandma Marrs died, I asked for one of her old house dresses, which I framed and hung on the guest room wall. I retired her jersey, as it were.

Grandma Marrs was an unreconstructed hillbilly from Pettigrew, Ark. She was not of her century. She was missing a few of her teeth, her hair looked like a dandelion, and she never drove, flew on an airplane, or saw the ocean. She would get so tickled telling a story she would gasp for air. “Why, I swan,” she’d say, which was hillbilly for “I don’t believe you, so stop lying.”

Her look of love was more one of bemusement. I think her grandchildren confounded her, but that didn’t stop her from loving us. When she died, Lurlean at the funeral home put a small smile on my grandmother’s still face. I don’t think Lurlean knew my grandmother, but it was a perfect send-off. Everything made my grandmother giggle — religion, marriage, divorce, death, all of it. She wasn’t cynical — by any means — but she wasn’t taking anything too seriously, either. I admired her greatly.

She set the bar so high that when I became a grandmother, I worried I’d not measure up.

Part of that was I never felt I got the hang of being a mother. Simply doing the opposite of your own mother is not a workable plan, and there was a good deal of (inelegantly) feeling my way. Grandmothering was different. The pressure’s off. It’s not that grandkids can do no wrong, but when they do wrong, it’s entertaining.

I have had seven grandchildren on which to practice. Five came with the house, two are biological. The youngest two (see above) are twins, a boy and a girl, aged, respectively, 10 and 35. When they come for a sleep-over at Camp Granny, I pre-plan what meals we’ll eat and what games we’ll play. And then we decide to sit and watch iPads or play video games, and I’m cool with that, too. Their book reports are staggering in their depth, their finger-paintings are Picassos. On Saturday, we’ll go to Night Fall in Hartford. We’ll stay up too late and wake up cranky, and then watch movies all day.

One day, I’ll be like my Grandma Marrs, a quirky character in family stories. I hope they’re funny stories. I also hope someone thinks to retire my house dress, which in my case is a pair of ratty sweats. I don’t have a signature phrase like “Why, I swan.” I should get to work on that.