A message to my Gran:
We’re all biased when it comes to the world’s best Grandmother, aren’t we?
I’m no different.
Maybe it is the warm memories of our childhood that they elicit. That feeling when you walk into their house, that you are in the safest and most loving place that could possibly exist. For me, it was endless cheese and pickle sandwiches, stories at bedtime, chocolate cakes, and my Gran’s never-ending good cheer. Let me say this for the record. I have never once heard my Gran mutter an angry word against anyone. In my forty-four years of life, she has only ever been one way. Relentlessly kind and loving to those around her, as though it is her sole purpose for existing on this planet.
Just once did I manage to upset my Gran.
On one summer holiday, she was wiping the floor with me at table tennis, batting away my teenage strokes with ease, like I was an annoying gnat. While I was focused and intense, she would enjoy our shots as though she were attending Wimbledon as a neutral observer.
“Oh good shot lovey,” she would say on the rare occasion that I got one past her.
“Oh good shot me,” she would say with equal delight, on the more frequent occasion that she got one past me.
Finally, my ego could take no more, and I began to become obstinate and obnoxious. I prowled on the other side of the table, yelping in disbelief at the terrible hand I had been dealt in life.
“It’s this table,” I snapped, slamming my bat onto the surface and catching it on the bounce, barely keeping it together.
Sensing me boiling, Gran did what she always did in such moments. She let up just slightly and began to let me win. To start with this felt good. She took her foot off the pedal just enough that it felt almost real. Imperceptible at first, but I was fourteen and knew better. Fourteen. Not six or seven. I should have been able to beat my sixty-something Gran without a second thought. She began to play big loopy shots that I could hit back quite easily. Higher she would loop them. On my match point, she looped one so high that it sat in the air for an eternity. I moved around the table and decided to do something unnecessary.
I could have tapped it over for the win, but I didn’t.
I smashed it. With all the might that I had in my body.
The only problem was that I smashed it wrong. It didn’t bounce off the other side of the table and away for the win as it should have. Instead, it angled hard and straight at my Gran. It was a horrifying moment. The plastic ball pelted her right below the neck and stung her.
In a moment I felt this utter feeling of sickness descend over me as I rushed around the table to make sure she was ok. She rubbed her neck as I apologized and cuddled her.
“Oh lovey,” she said. It was the only time I had ever seen disappointment in her eyes.
“I’m so sorry Gran,” I said. I looked at her again and felt a wash of relief as the disappointment evaporated from her face as quickly as it had arrived. She still loved me. She always has, and I in turn have always adored her… at least, when not maiming her with a table tennis ball.
Anyway, this is my Gran’s story.
As a lifelong teacher, it is told through one weekly lesson, of which there are forty in total. Gran and I have spent hours on the phone putting this together. As I live in Rochester, NY now and Gran lives in Whaley Bridge, England this became a weekly back and-forth to get it just right. Many times I have given myself artistic license to write in Gran’s voice. Sometimes I have accidentally used American English instead of English-English. I ask you just to go with it. The process went much like this. Gran riffed on the phone. She would come up with a lesson title or a saying and then talk in detail about a specific part of her life. I would then play with the notes and try and craft them into something bite-sized before reading them back to her a few days later on the phone. In many ways, it became a trans-Atlantic game of table tennis, without the angry teenager. Anyway, you get the picture.
I love you so much, Gran.
I hope this does you justice.
Robin
Lesson 1: Friday, February 17th - The greenest field is the farthest away
Robins gran is 1 of the best. I remember the time like it was yesterday she allowed me to join her, Robin and his girls for dinner at her house. This is not where the gesture ends, she encouraged me to buy fish and chips for them all, which were gleefully devoured and thoroughly enjoyed, after all… who doesn’t like free food? As Sheila went to get dessert, I remember the excitement as if I’d just won the lottery… 1, 2, 3, 4 delicious looking puddings for herself, Rob, the 2 girls…. Herein the story ends. I feel eternally grateful I was allowed to watch everyone eat dessert that day while I had none. Worst £50 I’ve ever spent.
I met Robin’s gran once at Penfield Town Hall moments before Robin and I and the rest of our team-mates were about to embark on another sporting endeavour. I can’t remember the opposition but we were representing Penfield Rangers FC in the Rochester & District Soccer League (RDSL).
The RDSL was founded in 1908 and Robin’s gran was born I would guess about 25 years later.
The only thing I remember about that game was that Robin scored and as he sprinted off to celebrate, it was clear that the only thing on his mind was looking at his gran as he did so. His knees were raised so high and he ran so fast that it was all I could do to keep up with the ecstatic fellow.
Somehow, I perceived that the most important thing I could do at that moment was copy Robin’s every move. Somehow I knew it was absolutely vital that Robin’s gran observe not just one idiot celebrating as if he’d scored at Wembley but as many of us as possible. All I wanted to do at that moment was to show Robin’s gran how much Robin is adored and loved here in his new life. I’ll always remember that goal celebration for as long as I live.