Nothing Like Grandma's House

In a world where so many things change, it is always good to know that some things are eternal. Hairstyles go from fluffy to flat, skirts go from long to short, and cars go from boxy to round. But generation after generation, the love of grandparents remains the same.

Where else can an angry son turn when Mom and Dad don’t understand anything at all, then to Grandma and Grandpa. What better place to curl up on the couch and the weight of the world slips off your shoulders, than in a grandparents house. All problems are checked at the door and healing is begun with a plate of meatballs. As grandparents sit nearby and simply provide friendship and love, eyelids get droopy on an old, well worn couch. Things stick in your hips that were dropped there in 1927 and never seen again. Hopefully, they are not edible, although even bacteria can’t live that long, so even edible things are safer than those stuck in the couch at home. If your problems are boredom, the artifact can be studied. If teen problems are monetary, the antique from the couch can be sold on Ebay for another tank full of gas.

No problems can survive a giant plate of meatballs, the cure all for any problem life may serve. And grandparents never judge or chastise like a mom and dad. And even their wisdom is always so much wiser. And a smart teen will make sure and blame the misunderstanding on the parent that happens to be the in-law to that set of grandparents. That assures complete agreement from Grandma and Grandpa that the in-law is a regimented, demented meanie with no amount of love like a grandparent can provide. And after being stuffed with meatball after meatball, any problem of failing grades or lost loves is overwhelmed by the new problem of having gained about 35 pounds inside of two and a half hours and not fitting into those prom clothes that are waiting on the bedroom door. Undoubtedly, much better problems to handle when life gets too hard.

As I watch my own teens seek out my parents for help and advice as we butt heads day after day, it reminds me of my own grandparents’ house. Upon entering their door, the world fell away. Life never changed in their kitchen. The television was still playing movies from 1948. Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed still looked out of the screen as they had for the last 40 years, the stove still bubbled with the same tomatoes and garlic as it had since 1932, and my grandmother would minimize my problems by pointing out the 3rd floor window at one neighbor after another. This one lost his job, that one was pregnant, that one left his wife, and that one just got out of jail. A menagerie of life lessons that made my own heavy heart seem silly.

As I drifted off one visit with the weight of the world on my chest, the crazy neighbor lady came over and sat on my grandmother’s couch. She actually sat on me, on my grandmother’s couch. I awoke to no airflow and possible suffocation as she pinched my cheeks and told me how I had grown. I entered the kitchen a few minutes later with a new lease on life after my near death-by-asphyxiation and new appreciation for extreme lung capacity and blood flow to my brain. I was stuffed with more meatballs and left my grandparents that week with too tight pants, gravy stained shirts, and a happy, light heart.

And every great once in awhile, as I close my eyes at night with a heavy heart and what seems like unsolvable problems, I am lucky enough to dream. A dream of an 8 year old me standing before three flights of stairs leading upwards. I open a battered screen door to the smell of frying garlic and onions and rush up the stairs on 8 year old legs to vault into the plush, welcoming arms of unchanging love. I once again see a kitchen that has been empty for the last 23 years, and look out a window at long ago neighbors that had problems greater than mine. And as I wake up late at night with a tear dampened face, I know those grandparents are still with me and
I can still feel that peace. And as I peer into the darkness, I know things will be all right, because I swear I can smell, still hanging in the night, the faint traces of meatballs and the whispers of unending love.