The Pedestal is Precarious, But a Grandchild's Love Steadies

The Boston Globe

He thinks I know everything.

He calls and tells me he's doing a report for school. "What do people who work in coal mines die from, Mimi?" he asks.

"Lung disease. Black lung. Emphysema," I tell him.

"How do you spell emphysema?"

I spell it, and he says, "Thank you."

"Why didn't you look this up online, Adam?" I ask.

And he says, "Because I knew you'd know." And though we are two miles apart talking on the phone, I can see my grandson smiling.

Adam thinks I can cook, too, that I make the best pancakes (they are pretty good) and the best Mexican food — not together, of course, though if I served both at the same time, I'm sure he'd say, "What a fantastic idea!"

With him, everything I do is right.

He comes over after school and sits on the couch, not in a corner off by himself, but right next to me and tells me about a book he's reading. "It's part of a series. It's the best series ever. You need to read it, Mimi." So we get in the car and drive to the library and he finds the first two books and we come home and read, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians — The Lightning Thief." And though he's read it before, he sits and reads it with me. Again.

Sometimes we watch "Star Wars." He has the series on DVD. He knows the order, which isn't one, two, and three. But something else. Something I can never remember. He remembers. Often I ask, "Who is that again?" because months pass between our "Star Wars" watching and I forget things. Adam never sighs or says, "Mimi! I told you this." He just tells me again.

He taught me to play chess a few years ago. It took a long time to teach me. I practiced on an app I downloaded and beat him once. He was so happy you would have thought he had beaten me.

Adam also sees my flaws as virtues. When I drive him somewhere and get us lost, he laughs and says, "You're always lost," as if my inability to find places without making a half-dozen wrong turns is a game.

That's how high up on a pedestal he's put me, so high that I get dizzy looking down. It's a big drop. I know because it's not my first time up here. I was here many years ago when my children were small. I thought it was a permanent place, this pedestal. I thought, like a homesteader, I was set for life. "Mama," my children cried when they were happy, sad, hot, tired, hungry, wet, thirsty, scared, when they were anything. "Mama, come here!" "Mama, don't leave." "Mama, read to me." "Mama, watch me!" Mama! Mama! Mama!"

All I had to do was be there and they were satisfied.

But it's only rental property on the pedestal. One day, you get evicted. "Mom, can you please try not to embarrass me in front of my friends." "No, Mom, I don't want to go to the movies with you." "You know, Mom, you don't know everything."

But I did, for a while.

When Adam and I are together, we read, watch TV, play cards, cook, talk. We do nothing special.

But it's all special because I know that next week, next month, sooner rather than later, he will be embarrassed if I hug him in public or get us lost when he has a friend in the car.

Next week, next month, sooner rather than later, he won't want to snuggle up to me on the couch. He'll sit in the corner and text a friend.

And next week, next month, sooner rather than later, he sure won't be calling to ask me a question he can get the answer to online. Because online he'll get a better answer. A more complete answer. And he'll know this.

Right now, though, he thinks I have all the answers. Right now he thinks I can do nothing wrong. Right now I am basking in this perfect love, savoring my time on the pedestal.