Lost in Translation
Written By Sarah Trillin
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A mother wonders how she'll help her son connect with the grandmother he never met.
By the age of 18 months, my son Toby (now almost 3) could point at pictures of everyone in our family and say their names. My father is called "Babbo," and my husband's parents are designated "Pop Pop" and "Namo" — names created through intimate interactions. Toby never had a chance to make up a name for my mother because she died almost five years ago, before he was born. [Editor's note: This essay was written in 2006; Toby, now 5, has a brother Nate, almost 2.]
Two of my own grandparents died before I was born, and a third was gone by the time I was 3. Despite all of the stories I've heard about them, I often feel I don't know any of the truly important things. The one grandparent I knew well, my father's mother, apparently was an entirely different person with me than she was with my father. When I hear him describe his mother as anxious and worried, I can hardly connect his description with the funny and affectionate grandma who laughed at all of our jokes and fed us ice-cream floats right before bedtime.
If my father's description of his mother never matched up to mine, I wonder how I'll ever fully conjure up my mother for Toby. She and I often had a very difficult relationship; sometimes it seemed like an endless series of misunderstandings and disappointments between us. So far I've only told Toby stories about the perfect moments I shared with my mother, like "snuggle dry" after bath time. (My mom would wrap towels tightly around us kids and then snuggle and rub us until we were all dry.) Or how she used to pack a picnic for me and my sister so we could go out onto the lawn and have a "grown-up" lunch all by ourselves.
I know it will get more complicated as Toby gets older. Perhaps as his understanding of people and relationships grows, there will be room for me to share some of the things about my mother that were more challenging — as well as the more colorful stories he's too young to understand. (Like the time my mother, a pathological optimist, tried to set me up with a man she found charming — after we met him at the engagement party his parents were giving him and his fiancée.) It might even make her more real — and cushion the blow when he finds out that I, too, am far from perfect. I'm also hoping that Toby will learn more about my mother as he comes to know me better. Eventually Toby will notice that many of the pictures of my mother look just like me. The books I read, the foods I cook, the way I arrange furniture, along with about a hundred other things, are all hugely influenced by my being her daughter.
A little girl at Toby's day care has two sets of grandparents who take turns picking her up. Recently, Toby was talking about this little girl's grandparents, and he said sadly, "But I don't have a grandma." Of course, Toby has one wonderful grandma, but he was not forgetting about his beloved Namo. He was simply saying, "I have lost one of my grandmas." I know that Toby is not old enough to feel a real sense of loss about never having met my mother. But maybe his words were a reflection of my loss, and perhaps some slight understanding that she must be an important person. After all, she did create snuggle dries.
Then again, maybe her mother made up snuggle dries — I wish I knew.
Next: How readers teach their children about relatives and friends who have passed away.
