by Susan Darst Williams, Elkhorn, Nebraska

They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. . . .

— Psalm 92:14

            When people are asked about their favorite childhood memories, they don’t mention toys, trips to Disneyland , or other elaborate, expensive things. By far, they say what meant the most was spending time with their grandparents.

            How true. I remember sleepovers at Grammie’s, and her celebrated pancake feeds. Her roses, and the funny way she drove. Racing our cousins around the house at frequent get-togethers. And how I always got to go to camp free, because Grammie worked in a big office and sold candy for me like nobody’s business.

            Meanwhile, Grandpa regaled us with wild tales of his boyhood adventures and his days running slot machines. One time he fanned $100 bills out before our eyes after a big day at the races just to see our eyeballs bulge. We thought he was ten feet tall, the most important man in the world. And yet he liked nothing better than to sit on the couch and listen to us play the piano or sing.

            Most of all, I remember how they looked at me. There was a gleam in their eyes, a glow from a place down deep. A place that only forms when you’ve been in the love business for a while, and really know what you’re doing. They made me feel fiercely beloved. What a priceless blessing.

            Once you’ve received it, you know it when you see it. So it was with joy recently that I watched a first-time grandmother holding her weeks-old grandson, gazing at him and stroking his little bare feet. Her eyes were magnetized on his Winston Churchill little face . . . while on hers was that telltale Grandma Gleam.

            You’re never too old for love. Isn’t it grand?

            It was extra sweet, too, since she’d shared with me that, as a child, while she was well cared for, she never felt as though she was really, truly beloved. Something was missing. She just didn’t feel special, valuable, adored, cherished.

            She said, “It made me feel like nothing.”

            The pain remains. She says she can’t get rid of it.

            Except . . . now she has a chance.

            Because now she is a grandmother.

            And she’s eager to give the caliber of love to this little one that she didn’t get, as if somehow, that will make everything right. You know what? In the incomparable calculus of love, somehow, it will.

            She had a blast preparing the layette, redecorating a room for the new baby, and fantasizing over all the things she wants to do with him . . . all the things she wants to be for him.

            She’ll never feel like “nothing” again. She’s determined to be “something.” Somebody. Somebody SPECIAL – who will give him her undivided attention, her complete support, her smiles, her winks, her nods, her hugs, her all -- nothing held back.

            The kind of a grandma who clambers down on the floor and plays games . . . who flies kites . . . who cooks favorite foods . . . who loads ‘em up with “I love you’s,” as much as their hearts can hold.

            And now, the first one’s here. He’s big, beautiful and bouncing. She’s been holding him a lot, and crying a lot. The good kind.

            “Pretty soon he’s going to get that baby smell and I will NOT be able to get enough of it,” she sighed.

            I got tears in my eyes over all the love pouring out of her, knowing that it would multiply with each additional grandchild, each act of love for them serving as an act of healing for herself.

            Someday, I believe those grandkids will argue over which one Grandma loves the most.

            They’ll all be right. Because she’ll love them all the most that she can.

            That’s the kind of Grandma she’s going to be: one whose love shines out from a place down deep. It’s a place God designed especially for the elders among us -- the ones who know that giving love is receiving it, too -- the ones who really know what they’re doing.

            The ones the children call “grand.” †

Susan Darst Williams, www.DailySusan.com, lives at the base of Mount Laundry, Nebraska .