The Sweetest Word

Digital art collage by Stella Kalaw

“We have something to show you,” my son said, grinning, as he opened his front door. I’d been away at a cottage, and he’d insisted I swing by on my way home. It couldn’t wait, he’d said.

In the foyer of his house, he handed me a small, oblong box with “Shaeffer” imprinted on top. “A pen?” I asked with a smile. Puzzled, I took it from his outstretched fingers, as his wife looked on, beaming. But it didn’t quite look like a pen; I wasn’t sure what I was looking at and looked at him quizzically. “It’s a pregnancy stick!” my son laughed. “We’re pregnant!” added my daughter-in-law.

I was stunned. Rallying, I stammered out my congratulations. Not the reaction they were expecting. But I didn’t feel old enough to be a grandmother even though I was older than most. I hugged them both before getting back into my car, trying to process the news. I was going to be a grandmother! And yet I felt not the least bit ready.

My mother was in her 60s when I had my first child. I don’t recall her being ecstatic about the news, either. She wasn’t really hands-on. But she always enjoyed doing things with me and the kids, going on jaunts together or hanging out. The diaper changing…well, it was not her thing.

My kids never developed a close relationship to her, but they were dutiful when, later in life, she ended up in a home. They would bring their own babies to visit. She loved reaching out from her wheelchair to hold onto their tiny hands or grab their little feet, laughing and smiling all the while.

I had always had a close relationship with my own grandmother ― my mother’s mother. My Bubby, as I called her, looked like she’d just stepped off the boat from Galicia: the kerchief around her head, the apron, the nylon stockings rolled halfway up her legs. I loved her dearly and she returned that love unconditionally.

When I was ready to go to university, I chose Concordia in Montreal. I can’t remember if it was intentionally, so that I could see Bubby regularly — I lived in Ottawa— but my visits were a highlight of my week. And hers, likely. She’d wait expectantly for me by her basement window, looking out on the world striding by.

We’d walk arm in arm down the street to The Brown Derby restaurant, stay an hour and then, sated, my Bubby’s pockets full of packaged sugars and extra napkins (sometimes rolls), we’d leave the detritus of our table behind to walk in camaraderie back to her dark, depressing flat, where I’d say good-bye until the next time.

My daughter-in-law had also been very close to her grandmother. She understood how special that relationship can be. So once I digested the fact that it was my turn now, I waited for the first grandchild to arrive. Worried, in some ways, about how finally being a grandmother would feel. Wondering how I’d arrived so quickly at this point in my life.

When I was growing up, grandparents seemed grey and stooped in my child’s lens. They looked old! I was now in their league — blond but far from stooped. I felt more like 16 than 67. Would I take to being a grandmother? I didn’t even like the sound of “grandma” or “bubby”; it made me feel ancient and I wanted to feel young. I decided that I would opt for safta, the Hebrew word for “grandmother.” It had a nicer ring to it.

In preparation, I watched YouTube videos on how to diaper newborns. After all, it had been decades since I had diapered my own. I studied how to swaddle a baby, wishing I’d kept my old reference books.

Never would I have guessed just how much I would relish my new role. While never one to go gaga over babies, my heart somersaulted in joy when I beheld my new granddaughter for the first time, and I was immediately smitten. Born during the height of COVID, emerging from an emergency C-section, she initially had some medical issues, and so we all wore masks around her for the first six months. It was an unusual way to be introduced to her.

Soon after, my daughter gave birth to a boy, and since then, both my daughter and son have each additionally had boys. I am safta to four fascinating and beautiful little kiddies.

Grandparenting is such a lovely state of being. There’s all of the fun of nurturing without any of the attendant responsibilities of being a mother: outings to the local parks and ice cream parlours in summer, visits to the library in winter. I’ve become an expert at blowing bubbles and building Duplo towers, squatting down on kid-sized chairs for make-believe tea parties, chasing pint-sized kiddies down halls and in and out of rooms. And they have taught me to chill and embrace the messiness of childhood.

Instead of feeling old, grandparenting has given me a new lease on life. I look forward to seeing my favourite four and they, in turn, seem always happy to see me. “Safta, Safta!” they scream, as they rush to greet me at the door.

That word from their lips has become my favourite sound.