Calendar Pages--The Great Grandmas

Every year, I make a calendar for my Nana. She really likes them and uses it throughout the year to mark occasions and appointments. She's 87 and Betty is 85. When my grandmothers reached a certain age, I started doing these yearly rituals for them--planting bulbs, spring visit to the Broadway market, making calendars. The rituals are my way of saying, "stay with me for this year, for this season".

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I'm devoted to my grandmothers. I figured for Sam, a mere sprout, their age would make them irrelevant to him: They are so passed their prime and each has such little spunk left (and both in their day but very differently were spunky broads). I should have known they would not settle for irrelevance. Sam says to me regularly, "I love Nana." (and alternatively, "I hate Nana" which means "I don't want to do whatever it is you want me to do."); and, he cries whenever it is time to leave Gamma Be-y house. Nana smothers him in kisses, gives him money from her change purse and gushes whenever he shows her a new toy or a latest dance move. And Betty, she calls him her boyfriend, bickers with him and always has soup and cookies at the ready. And I know that when they are gone, Sam may or may not have specific memories of them but their lives will have marked his.