Tears and Laughter: What grandmothers need not worry about

There comes a day in most every woman’s life when the news arrives that she is to be a grandmother. And all women react differently to this news.

Some faint.

Others are jubilant. They immediately get excited and start buying cute baby clothes and blankets and baby gear.

This is especially true I would think of women who just had one child later in life and then that one child waited until later in life to start a family.

I hate to use them as an example but Hillary and Bill would fall into this category. They are grandparents for the first time as of last week. I’m sure they are proud, and rightly so.

That is the common thread. Whether you are 40 and it catches you a little off guard, or you are 65 and been waiting for years, we all end up proud.

By nature, we as women tend to dwell on these things more than men, but one of the first orders of business after the initial shock wears off is to decide what the new bundle of joy will eventually call us.

Not that many women seem to want to be called Grandmother. We prefer to soften it a bit.

Nana is popular. A lot of people want to be called Nana. I’m not one of them, but my mother is. And Hillary will probably be a Nana too.

Granny is always a possibility. My grandmother was a Granny – even though she didn’t want to be.

She wanted to be called Grandmother. But my brother happened, and he started talking very early, mostly to himself, and he declared her Granny one afternoon and everybody encouraged him. She was Granny from then on. Even people who weren’t her grandkids called her Granny. She was good at it.

My mother-in-law…on the other hand, wanted to be called Granny. But when Whitney, her oldest granddaughter, came along, she decided Grammy rolled off the tongue easier than Granny. The next dozen grandchildren followed suit.

I fall into what is the Gigi, Me-Me, Mae-Mae generation.

I chose Gigi, because I’m redheaded.

So armed with the knowledge of how this pattern seems to work, I started prepping Delilah as soon as she entered the world. When I first had the chance to hold her after she was born at Baptist East Hospital I started telling her, “Now, the Gigi loves you.”

And, as you all know, my daughter Miranda has a great sense of humor and quickly blessed us with Julia Dawn. She is named, in part, after me, Amanda Dawn, and I tell her every chance I get, “Now Julia D., the Gigi loves you.”

I have done this repeatedly over the course of several months and a few days ago Delilah finally acknowledged me with a name. I’m Gi. Not a full Gigi, just a big Gi.

So from the Big Gi and every Grandmother, Granny and Nana ever, don’t plan for what they will call you, plan instead for how you will say goodbye to your heart…because they take it.

Amanda Walker is a columnist with The West Al. Watchman, Al.com, The Thomasville Times, and The Wilcox Progressive Era – https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist .