Stories For The Grandkids

My sweet grandmother and namesake died six years ago this week. I was there by her side when she took her final breath but I must say, it was one of the sweetest and most peaceful moments of my life and arguably of hers too. She seemed to be just a simple, God-fearing loyal woman. She grew up in Mississippi, raised two girls and loved a man with a fatal heart disease. However, if you scratched anywhere below her surface you would find a tiger, whip and dreamer, never close to shaking her conservative roots but always willing to push the social envelope. I’d like to say she passed some of those genes on to me. 

Like my grandma, I realize I do most things in life for the story. I crave the round table discussions when strings of memories become facts to those who listen. Even at 92, my grandmother’s stories were relevant and vivid despite carrying decades of dust and life on their shoulders. Though her body aged and eventually died, she never lost her sharp mind or her ability to share secrets and musings of her past. I miss her, but I really miss her stories. 

Since moving to Qatar, I share all parts of my day with family and friends who live seven or eight hours behind me in the past tense. My day can sound dull or riveting, largely depending on how I choose to paint it. It’s a strange freedom, to orchestrate the soundings of my day, but it has given me perspective on my life too. Each day when I tell those I love of what I’ve done I’m suddenly held to account for every hour I spent. I have to actually think about my moments on this Earth and share how I lived them. With time, my audience will change. As I grow into adulthood I have begun to dream and long for the day when the audience listening are generations younger and share my blood. I am beginning to realize the menagerie of stories I collect now will one day be stories for the grandkids. My grandkids. 

Mind you, I have no grandchildren (you can add kids and a husband to the list as well) but I do enjoy the idea of the juxtaposition of one day telling the stories of my youth with the apocalyptic look of aged skin. I love the thought that the way I live my life today can inspire and amuse a future generation in the same way my grandmother’s tales did for me. 

Since starting my job I have traveled immensely, but when I come back home (Doha) after days away it’s as if I am able to see myself in third person, as if I am meeting myself for the first time. It is in those few days of vulnerability and post-holiday blues that I am able to offer myself advice about what I would change as if I were a friend asking for my perspective. In those sensitive days I feel as if I’m giving advice to my future loved-ones about the lives they have yet to live. Though deep in the middle of my ‘roaring twenties’, I truly want to live these years in such a way as to encourage and entertain others down the line. ‘Grandma moved to the Middle East as a young single girl so I can move to Singapore.’ I barely grasp the rarity of this time as being the first in my life when wisdom and youth begin to overlap but, quite frankly, it’s exhilarating.

I am able to see myself as a child, yet have the job and the friends to reassure me that I am in fact (legally) an adult. I’m caught between two worlds (in more ways than one) and I’m thankful I can step outside of myself to see myself and help myself. I live alone so few people really observe the flaws glaring at me every day. I have to be my own mirror and shape and guide this fragile sparrow that so often wants to soar. As I see myself getting older and maturing I feel torn between fighting the openness of being younger and the ‘set in your ways’ attitude shared by many adults. I’m afraid of turning to stone because the only thing worse than a bad story is a good one whose teller has soured with age. I’m afraid of not wanting to care or change. I wouldn’t want that for my grandkids and I don’t want that for me. 

So what would I tell them, two generations removed, about keys to growing up, ways to stay humble and wild secrets about youth? I would tell them to travel. I would tell them to move far away, start a new job, feel stupid as often as possible, to cry without shame and to soak in a few rays of sunshine every evening. I would warn them of silent and lonely moments but would encourage them to embrace it. I would tell them to date (and date long distance at that!) and make eye contact with strangers before saying hello. 

My advice to them would largely be to do what I try to do in my life now. Thinking of my future guidance helps me live without regret.

Be strong, I would say, but never fear weakness. And when you feel you have no meaning and nothing to look forward to, sit down and write a story. Scribble down a memory you’d want your grandkids to hear.