Today reminded me of times spent at Granny’s, when she appeared to have nothing more pressing than conversing with those who dropped by for a visit.  It didn’t matter who came– a cousin from ‘the City’ or a niece from McAlester or even one of us grandchildren – Granny dropped whatever just to visit and make her guest feel welcome.

We no longer live in a society where people pause in the act of everyday life to load up the car for a Sunday drive and visit.  Except today felt something akin to the memory of those days.  And it fell out of Kara’s careful planning of a surprise Mother’s Day Brunch — pulling my four adult children and their two spouses together —  that grew into a gift that kept giving, as Kate and Glen came by the house with two grands in tow.  I hadn’t seen Jackson in several months, and just like a grandmother should, I told him he’d grown a few inches since I’d last laid eyes on him.  And Karson – one can never know what will come out of that child’s mouth –today it was her views on home grown lettuce.

Three of my four children left with leaf lettuce picked fresh from my vegetable garden.  Karson helped me pick and gather the lettuce I was sending home with her mom.  But as soon as we came in, while I was off in the kitchen bagging up the lettuce, Karson snuck off to whisper to her mom behind my back a dire warning not to eat the lettuce…coz she’d saw Nana pull it out of the dirt!  Isn’t it lovely that mothering can come in all shapes and sizes that even a five-year can mother her thirty year old mom on what not to eat? 

I’ve been a grandmother for almost ten years now.  And today, for the first time ever, I felt less like a mother and more like a grandmother, which I believe has more to do with attiude than age.  My days of motherhood were defined by fullness, by putting too much on my plate.  But today had such an easy spaciousness about it, with nothing more on my plate than whatever life happened to serve  up in the present moment.

Just like a grandmother should, I offered drinks and ice cream and old fashioned hospitality, so my callers left knowing that in my world, they hung the moon.  So when Karson wanted to play with the boy’s train set, I dropped everything to go bring it up from the basement.  When Karson wanted a scrambled egg and toast, I became her short order cook.  And when Jackson wanted to play his new Monopoly-Dogopoly game, we three adults cleared the dining room table to make room for a good old-fashioned, if slightly updated, board game.

And you know what?  Today I was top dog.