I wish you were my grandmother

Age is just a number and numbers are fun to deal with. I was always excellent in math and found it quite exciting to do. When I was twenty, I became an aunt for the first time to my brother’s first child. I loved this little girl from the moment I got the title of aunt. I went out that night I became an aunt, up to The Read’s Drug Store and bought her the first baby doll she received. It was thirty-six inches tall and it was so large, she could not play with it until she was about three years old. I became a first time grandmother at age fifty-eight and that was a thrilling moment. I became a great aunt when I was forty-seven and that was from the above first niece having grown up and having her first daughter. Smart girl that she was, the baby was born on my forty-seventh birthday. Then she, the great niece had a baby boy almost six years ago, and I have the distinction of being a great great aunty. This is so sweet too. When my friend called to tell me about 14 years ago, that she was becoming a grandmother for the first time at age seventy-two and half, I was thrilled for her. She said “I am the oldest first time grandmother in Pikesville,Randallstown.” I said “so what, it happened and that is wonderful, regardless of your age.” So it was, because that little girl was the apple of her eye and the joy of her life. The grandmother passed away in November 2011 and so she left this darling child to always remember her with love and warmth. She never looked at her grandmother as being older than some of her friends’ grandparents. To her, she was Nana and Nana was special. I see where Dick Van Dyke at age eighty-six has married a forty year old lady. Tony Randall married a woman when he was seventy-seven who was fifty years younger than him and had his first two children then and was very happy being a first time dad at that advanced age. Age is numbers and numbers can be used anyway we desire. We read in the ads that an item is fifty percent off or buy two and get one free which in math would make the total cost for 3- 2 hundred dollars, whereas the supposedly original price was one hundred each. This is an extraordinary good deal. It is in math one third off of the original price. When we ballroom dance, we see people dancing from the ages of nine years up to ninety years. The youngsters in this country taking ballroom dance are really getting younger every year. I know of a nine year old who dances with her partner and he is ten. They take a lesson a week and their parents split the cost of the hour time. They practice often at one of their homes and have already at the grand young age of almost ten years won a few competition prizes. The young girl gets her dancing fancy costumes from Russia where her mom lived before her marriage, because over there, they are less expensive than here. The little boy’s mom gets his suits at a men’s suit store where they have small sizes. I have seen women almost ninety dancing beautifully with style and grace and they are elated to still be able to move as well as they do and they sure do dress up in dance outfits that are quite sexy and beautiful. When I started to compete in about 1978, I needed a special made dance costume/dress for a competition showcase. I went downtown here to a fancy and ritzy dress shop called The French Shoppe where you had your own salesperson and she stayed with you bringing out readymade dresses by the dozens. She stayed with you until you found the gorgeous one you desired. My first one was a green chiffon knee length and had slit sleeves and was quite elegant in its simplicity. It was a long dress and I was instructed by the dance staff to wear it knee length for this showcase. What fun it was getting it altered, having Miss Toby as my personal salesperson who stayed with me and helped me the whole two hours I was there. It was a fancy place and I felt like Cinderella getting ready for the ball. When I picked it up, all altered and pressed a few weeks later, it was a few nights before my first appearance doing what is called a showcase at the studio you take lessons from. Oh, how proud I felt, I was about forty-three and I ordered a special pair of dance shoes which have what is called suede soles, so you do not slip on the wood dancing floors. Cinderella, I was and when I got home at long after twelve midnight, I did not turn back into the maligned stepsister. I remained her for a whole week. I was the fancy Cinderella who remained a princess for seven days. The glorious dress, bought in an elegant dress shop and the special sales person who gave of her time and energy to me, was my lady-in-waiting for the few hours; she took over the whole dress episode. What energy the applause gives you and what sweet power you possess for the few minutes you dance before your peers of various ages. When you do that, you show the world that at age forty-three, nine years old, seventy-seven or even eighty-six, you are still vibrant, alive and able to do everything you always wanted to accomplish. I read an ad for Subway Sub shops where they called their sandwich makers of the sub sandwiches ‘sandwich artists.’ How cute that is to give a title to making a sandwich and glorifying it by naming the job as an artist. Artists we all are, regardless of our now age, that is my own made-up slogan, our now age and that means we are empowered and enabled to do things that were not thought of doing probably fifty years ago. People are accomplishing feats that were never imagined being done then; and yet we do it now because we have the spirit, maybe the finances and most of all the desire and will to do IT. I saw a very aged lady in the waiting room of my doctor’s office a few months ago knitting away at a large blanket. I asked her if it was for a grandchild and she said she makes them for other people’s grandchildren and takes orders for them over the internet or telephone. She makes one in about five days of constant knitting and she loves producing them for about forty dollars including the wool or nylon material. She really does not make a lot of money at that price and the time consuming hours; but she loves it, has a little business and even told me she went to Israel which is about more than fifteen hours one way; and she made several of them coming and going. Here was an aged person accomplishing the knitting of blankets, selling them and keeping her fingers and mind busy even on the airplane. I have written before of the seventy- seven year older lady who emailed me she started taking dance lessons at age seventy-six because she read my inspiring and encouraging dance articles online. Wow, starting to ballroom dance at that age is marvelous and she is very happy being a ballroom dancer. She is so excited and said her grandson brags about his swinging grandmother to his friends. Anything you desire, you want, you need, you yearn for, you can do it. A reader of one of my stories on Cockeysville Patch named Eric wrote a comment on the bottom of one of my articles from 12 months ago. He summed it up in a few words saying “I wish you were my grandmother, Elita.” That was it and it meant the world to me. I wrote him back, that he can now be my ‘email grandson.’ Do not let the numbers in your age outweigh you. You are a number ten and that is a beautiful number to be. You have transcended the math of numbers and go for whatever achievement you love. Therefore, you become Number One, the best number of all. title is Age Is Just A Number, You Are Special Regardless Of Your Age elita sohmer clayman 0 Across Maryland