The Other Grandma

I keep trying to forget the other grandma. She sits on the opposite side of the bleachers, her hair as silvered as mine, a fuchsia scarf around her neck, and her hands clenched in her lap, much as mine would be if the scoreboard flipped the numbers.

All through this basketball season, there’s been some grandma sitting over there. Sometimes the hair is coiffured, sometimes a no-nonsense wash-and-dry, sometimes bundled at the nape. Sometimes the grandma looks like she’s rushed in from the office wearing a blazer. Other times you’d think she just untied her apron and come straight from the kitchen. Whoever the grandma, she’s for the opposing team.

If she’s like me, she’s learned more about basketball than she ever thought she would—what palming is and goal tending and a five-second violation. She now understands the difference between an outside cut and an inside cut and between a personal foul and a technical foul.

And if she’s like me, she watches more than the game. She studies her grandson’s face for signs of desperation or accomplishment. She hopes to see him hold a temper, help a fallen opponent off the gym floor, and keep trying, even when he knows he’s lost. And she hopes to not see him crumpled on the court with a torn ACL.

Like me, she’s glad to be on the sidelines for her grandson, to feel the rise and fall of the ball and the emotions. Kids know who’s in the stands. And she hopes her presence now will help her grandson feel her with him long after she’s gone.

But for today, she wants her grandson’s team to win. She pictures him going to sleep this night savoring the three-point shots and the swishing free throws and the coach’s thumbs up.

Mine isn’t the only grandson out there—this is what the grandma of the fuchsia scarf in the opposing bleachers keeps reminding me.

Still . . . if I had to choose . . .