Anja

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Today I am grateful for my first granddaughter, Anja Braun, who is fifteen today.  Fifteen?  How can that be?

Wasn’t it yesterday when we were given the call that she was close to popping herself into the world and we jumped in the car to drive to the hospital and wait with her other grandparents for her arrival.  I don’t think we knew if she was going to be a boy or a girl, but I really don’t remember.  I was so ecstatic that nothing mattered.

I remember when I told my mom that Matt and Nicole were getting married.  “Oh my, now I’m worried!” my mom said.  I knew the multiracial issue was a concern of hers, though not of mine.  Different generations view things differently.  “What about the children?” she said.  “It’s going to be hard on the children.”  I disagreed. It’s a different time.  While we may think we’ve made no progress with race issues, we actually have. I was right and I’ve got Anja to prove it.

When I think back to the day she was born, I remember I had brought my Polaroid instant camera to the hospital.  Polaroid!  I wanted to have something tangible to show people immediately and it was before digital cameras.  I don’t think I even had a cell phone back then and if I did it sure didn’t have a photo option.  I snapped pictures of her with her dad, my son.  He was clutching her so tightly no one else could get a hand on her.  She looked a little like Mohamed Ali after a few tough rounds, but she had her mom’s dimples that I had requested.  Nan hollered at me that the flash was bothering her and Poppy and Grandpa John just looked awkward. I took pictures anyway.

When we finally left the hospital it seemed late, but the actual time is not in my memory anymore.  I kept those pictures clutched close all the way home.  When we reached the Lansdale exit, (also before EZ-pass) I handed my toll ticket to the beautiful, black, full-figured, slick-haired, long-pink-finger-nailed toll booth woman. . .along with the picture of Anja.

“This is my new granddaughter, Anja!  She was born today and made me a grandma for the very first time!”  She could have tossed it back at me with my change.  She could have rolled her eyes and hustled me forward.  She could have looked at my white face and Anja’s black face and shown disapproval.  But she didn’t.  She played.  She leaned forward through the window on her elbows, holding the picture in both hands and said, “Sweet Jesus!  A BABY!  You’re a grandma today?!  First time?!  Why that is just the best news that came through my lane in weeks!  You enjoy this little angel.”  Then she handed the picture back with my change.  I mark that moment as one of my most profound encounters with a stranger in my life.

So today I am grateful for Anja and also grateful that my mom’s fears about her being mixed-race were unfounded.  Though exotic looking, she is down-to-earth, funny, kind, gentle, goofy, quick-witted, and beautiful inside and out. She has the strongest sense of “self” of anyone I’ve ever met, of any age, not to mention at only fifteen.  If anyone can teach the world to accept mixed races with grace and dignity, Anja can.  Thank God she was born!