Grandchildren | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Grandchildren | Previous Challenge Entry
By Alice Lewis
01/22/05
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There is a longing in Martha’s soul, a desire that things could be different. She wistfully stares out the window as she is sitting by the kitchen table sipping her cup of coffee. Another woman, a lady her own age, is coming down the sidewalk with her grandchildren. They are on their way to the playground a couple blocks away. She knows the woman and the children. She pretends to be happy for them, but a pain stabs at her own heart.

How lucky to be able to baby sit for your grandchildren while the parents are at work. How much more time you can spend with them. How much you could teach them that you never had time to teach your own children. But that was not to be. Her own daughter lives in a distant state. The distance is greater than just the miles separating them. It is a distance of a state of mind.

Kirsten had been an independent child from the time she was a toddler. Martha was remembering the time when Kirsten, just two at the time, screamed at her like she had been hurt when she tried to help her put on her coat. "I do it myself. Go away Mommy." Martha had not had the time to let Kirsten do it herself because they were running late. The child sulked, "Bad mommy". It still stung now, thirty years later.

There were other times. Martha had tried to teach her to sew. "Go away. Let me figure it out myself." She wanted so much to share her insights, where she had made mistakes, short-cuts she had learned. But Kirsten would have none of it. "When are you going to stop interfering with my life?"

There were times when Kirsten would almost open up. A few times when she come home from school she would say a few words about a certain topic and expect that Martha should know the whole topic from beginning to end and even how Kirsten felt about it. When Martha would press for more information Kirsten would storm into her room, "I told you. But you never listen to me." Martha was at a total loss.

Things never got any better. Years later a wedding invitation came. "Be at this place, at this time and do this and this." Kirsten was totally unconcerned for the state of health of her parents. It was not possible to attend.

Now pictures of the grandchildren arrive from time to time. Martha takes another swallow of her coffee, wishing things were different. Many times over Martha had sent presents for the grandchildren but seldom gotten a reply. Letters have not been answered. Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes cross her mind. She ruefully chuckles.

Mr. Fox goes for a walk in the country and comes upon a grapevine. The huge cluster of grapes hanging from the top of the vine looks so delicious, so inviting. Fox jumps up to try to reach it, but misses. It is too high. He tries again and again. Finally in utter exhaustion he gives up. "Those grapes are probably sour."

The desire for a relationship with daughter and grandchildren is sour grapes, at least for now. But what Mr. Fox fails to realize is that grapes do eventually ripen. Perhaps when the grapes are fully ripe they may fall into Martha’s lap in her old age. That is her desire and hope.

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