So last year he started kindergarten.

They had moved to California early in the summer and we made a trip to visit them. He took us on a tour of their “very own”  house – which was really base housing which meant that it was the government’s “very own” house,  but he didn’t know that.  “And this is our very own kitchen.  And this is our very own living room. And this is the brothers’ very own room.  And this is our very own. . .  what is this, Mom?” A fuse box.  “And this is our very own fuse box. ” So excited he was!

We took them school shopping to get back packs and school supplies. He had his eye on a hiking pack that would have weighed down his Marine of a father – but maybe he recognized it as something like what his dad took with him to work every day when he went into the field. Whatever the reason, he would not be dissuaded. We showed him other ones that were more appropriate for the first day of kindergarten. “Oh, look Jackson!  This one has Spider Man on it!”  I offered. No, thank you. “How about this one with all of the cool cars on it?”  No, thank you.  Finally his mother said, “Jackson, Nana and the Colonel are not going to buy that back pack. Choose another one.”  He was fighting tears as he tried to readjust his expectations. And as any grandmother will tell you, I would have laid down the 200 bucks for that sucker in a heart beat. Yet, somehow I knew this would not bode well for either him or me in the long run. I tried to distract him with a more acceptable choice. “Oh WOW, Jackson.  Look!!  This one is perfect AND it even has a place for a water bottle.”  Maybe that would make it feel more like a “real” backpack to him, I reasoned. He turned, studied me like I was speaking gibberish and then said to me in the most patient tone he could muster, “Nana, that’s just crazy talk.”  And that’s how that phrase entered the family lexicon.

But no, that can’t be right –  it wasn’t just last year, was it?   No matter how unbelievable it seems, it was twelve years ago, and  though I can still see that little boy so clearly in my mind’s eye, now he is seventeen and grown to be a man and graduating high school.  How can this be true?

He is the first born of my firstborn – the one who made me a grandmother.  The first one to call us Nana & the Colonel. He came to us new and tiny and amazingly sweet.  And now he is old(er), and taller than any of us (by a long shot), and still amazingly sweet. He came into a family of untested grandparents and aunts and uncles and parents and we wrapped him in the blanket that his great-grandmother Fletch made for his dad and swallowed him up in our tribe and he was the first.  

We were in the waiting room of the Maternity Center when he was born and held him in our welcoming arms when he was only minutes old. From that moment on we were smitten.  I forgave my son  nearly every transgression and bone-headed thing he ever did for giving me this moment (I later rekindled the grudge, but another story for another day). Later that evening, some of the family went to the house to welcome him home. I was holding him when he spit the pacifier out onto the floor.

We all froze. We were in unknown waters here. No longer the parents, but now the grandparents, we waited for our cue. What was the protocol?  Should we pick it up and take it to the kitchen to wash it?  Sterilize it? Throw it in the trash and open a new one?  I know what I did  when it was my babies. . .  but those rules no longer applied – this was uncharted territory and I was more than a little uncertain. It was no longer my call. His mother reached down and picked it up off the floor, brushed it against her shirt, checked it for any visible dog hair or other debris, and put in back in his mouth. We all breathed a sigh of relief – this was going to be just fine!  And I must say a huge THANK YOU to our daughter-in-law and son for making our first foray into grandparenting so easy. They were beyond generous with all of their sons and patient with our mistakes and I know not everyone is so lucky.

I knew from my  own mother some of the ground rules of being a grandmother:

1. No matter how much you would do it differently yourself, keep your mouth shut and let their parents figure it out themselves.  You had your chance at parenting – this is not a do-over for you.
2.  It’s not about presents – it’s about presence. Be present in their lives as much as you can.
3. It’s not a competition or a zero sum game. Your grandkids need as many people to love them as possible in as many ways as possible. That means that you have to share.
4. Bake pies. Bake cookies. Bake bread. Bake.

And now he is no longer little but still the first. I’m not sure when it happened, this transition from the little boy to the man, but I remember the day  when I thought to myself – it’s happening and there will be no turning back. They were home for a visit – maybe over Christmas. His uncles (whom he adored and always wanted to hang with) were making plans to play a new game – late into the night, after the children were in bed. “You should stay and play with us J!” they offered. But the “littles” were all sent to bed, and his parents sent him up with them. Eventually he made his way back down the stairs and made his appeal – “They invited me to play with them. I’d really like to. Please? Can I?” And so he sat at the table with them that night, laughing and scheming and playing a game with the men. And he fit.  He belonged at that table. And I knew. . . something had shifted.

This week he graduates high school and it is both an ending and a beginning.

The end of  childhood . . . and the beginning of learning to be a grandmother to an adult and what that will look like. And all I can think of to say  is “That’s just crazy talk”.