A Trip to Grandma’s Inspires a Resolution

Every year, I put off taking down the holiday decorations. Packing up the ornaments and hauling the bare tree out to the curb gives me an acute sense of time passing. How many more Christmas mornings will my five-year-old daughter, Emi, race to the living room to see if Santa ate his cookies? When will the details of holidays with my kids start to run together, just as my childhood Christmas memories now do? Some of the highlights are clear—the year I got my first two-wheel bike with the yellow banana seat or the Christmas Eve my brother and I wore matching red-and-white-striped pajamas and bounced through the house, too excited to go to bed. But the details are murky.

On New Year’s Day, we visited my husband’s grandmother in the group home where she lives with six other elderly women. Hiroyo, or “G.G.” as Emi calls her, will be 102 in March. When we arrived with the kids, you would have though the Obamas had walked through the front door. “A baby!” the ladies exclaimed, crowding around my 14-month-old son and trying to coax a smile out of him. “Look at how pretty you are!” they called to my daughter. Emi hung back, shy, for a few moments, but then obliged them with a twirl of her purple velvet dress.

G.G. was in her room. It’s a small space, but bright, with French doors that open onto a patio where she likes to sit when the weather is warmer. What’s it like to ring in a New Year knowing you’ve outlived a husband, most of your friends, a daughter-in-law, and a son? Is she sad that so many celebrations are forever behind her? But like the ladies out front, G.G. was in a jolly mood. She gave my son her walker to push and laughed with delight when he zoomed out of the room with it. She pulled my daughter close, pressing her wrinkled cheek against Emi’s soft one and telling her how much she loved Emi’s pretty dress. The contented expression on G.G.’s face told me she enjoyed the moment.

Our Christmas tree still waits to be picked up from the curb. Tomorrow I’ll eat breakfast with my husband and kids, walk my daughter to school, and take my son to the park. The little moments of our lives will continue to march by. My resolution is to slow down and enjoy them.