At the shallow end of an indoor Olympic-size pool at the Sports Center in Monterey, Calif., he waits for a signal from the instructor to join the class.

“Come on in, Randy,” she calls, and he wades right in, grinning and unafraid, a 4-year-old Neptune splashing boldly into his watery kingdom.

And suddenly the room grows brighter. Randy is my grandson. He shines like the sun. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. [Read more…]

Long ago, in the mountains where I grew up, women sat down to watch over their grandchildren. My mother’s mother bore 12 babies. Ten survived to adulthood, one timid boy and nine headstrong girls.

When her children grew up to have children of their own, she took a ringside seat to watch her grandchildren pull the same death-defying stunts our parents had pulled. [Read more…]

This is for my newborn granddaughter.

Dear Eleanor,

It’s late. You are in your crib, bundled up like a pink burrito, in a room next to your mom and dad, who fell into bed a bit ago, limp as overcooked noodles.

Your dogs are in their crate. Your cats are in their beds. Your brothers are in their bunks. All is right with the world. Everyone is sleeping, except me. I’m awake thinking of you. [Read more…]

Small things can make a big difference. When a baby enters a family, for example, life changes for everyone _ parents, siblings, family pets _ even for the nana.

For the past half hour I’ve been sitting on a bean bag playing “prison guard.” To my right, the room is filled with delights: Cars, trucks, trains, books and billions of Legos.

To my left is a different kind of delight: Bunkbeds holding two small prisoners. [Read more…]

From the start, I sensed something special about him. I didn’t know he was blind and suffered cerebral palsy. Born premature, my brother spent his first months in an incubator. I was 4 years old, clueless about babies.

“What is that?” I said the day he finally came home.

“That’s your brother,” said my mother. “Call him Joe.” [Read more…]

Nana duty is not for sissies. It requires you to do things you once did as a mother: Feeding, tending and cleaning up after little people who seem to think they own your soul simply because, for some reason, you love them more than life.

But here’s the big difference. As a mother, you were young. As a nana, you are not.

You can tell yourself you’re still young at heart, but you cannot fool your body.  [Read more…]

Some people are good at saying thank you. My daughter and daughter-in-law and my husband’s niece, for example. They’re the kind of people who make you feel bad about giving them a gift because you know they’ll insist on taking time out of their very full lives to write you a lovely note of thanks.

Not that saying thank you isn’t important. Of course it is. That’s why it’s one of the first things we teach our children, long before they learn to write. [Read more…]

We’ve watched a lot of movies together, he and I. You might say it’s one of our traditions. The first film I took him to see was “The Godfather.” He was 4 months old. I figured if he got fussy, I’d either nurse him to sleep or make his dad take him outside until the credits rolled. I needn’t have worried. The boy was a born movie buff. He slept through the whole thing.

From there we progressed through “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Chariots of Fire,” “E.T.” and, OK, I’ll admit it, “Silence of the Lambs.” By then he was old enough to go to movies on his own, but didn’t mind being seen with his mom. [Read more…]

I meant to write a Christmas letter, the kind that organized, interesting, happy people write to say they’re still organized, interesting and happy. But I kept getting distracted and pretty soon I started thinking I’d make it a New Year’s letter and pretend that was my intention all along. [Read more…]

This is a Christmas story. I’ve told it before, but Christmas stories beg to be retold time and again, lest their truth be lost to anyone, especially the teller.

Besides, Christmas stories are woven with a thread of magic that makes each new telling a bit different from the past, both in how it’s told and how it’s heard.

This is my story. But I hope in some way, it will be yours, too. [Read more…]