Grandma's Love

I once said it was debatable whether Terry was Grandma’s favorite.

Debatable in the way the sky debates whether it’s blue.

Terry, I think, carried a quiet certainty about this. Not the bragging kind. The kind you tuck into your pocket and smile at when no one is looking. Proof came later, folded neatly inside a story he wrote, almost as an aside, like it surprised even him.

He was visiting Grandma for a stretch. A simple visit. Toothache included. The kind that throbs politely at first, then begins knocking on the inside of your head like it owns the place. He asked her, kindly, to make him a dentist appointment. Nothing dramatic. Just a request placed gently on the kitchen counter between the salt shaker and the mail.

When he came back and asked if she had made the appointment, Grandma paused. The way people pause when their memory is leafing through a crowded filing cabinet.

"Oh," she said, "I forgot."

Grandma continued, "I took Johnny (her dog) to get groomed and I took Baby (her other dog) to the vet because he had a funny spot on his foot, and you just slipped my mind."

“Oh well,” he wrote. “I see where I rate.”

That line always makes me laugh. Not because it’s bitter. Because it isn’t. It’s observational. Almost anthropological. Terry reporting back from the wilds of family love, where affection does not always follow logic, and dogs sometimes outrank humans with dental pain.

Grandma loved her dogs fiercely. The kind of love that involved appointments, schedules, worry, and absolute devotion. And she loved Terry too. Just differently. With expectation. With familiarity. With the assumption that he would be fine for one more day. Humans often get assigned resilience by default.

Terry knew this. You can hear it between the words. There is no complaint there. Just acceptance, softened by humor. He adored her. He talked about her often, years later, like someone recalling a favorite season. He wished he could visit more. He carried a quiet guilt about distance, about time moving faster than intentions.

But love, real love, is rarely tidy.

Sometimes it looks like a dentist appointment that didn’t happen.
Sometimes it looks like a dog with a fresh haircut.
Sometimes it looks like a grandson who understands, shrugs, and writes it down so we can smile later.

If there was a ranking system in Grandma’s house, it shifted daily. Weather-based. Mood-based. Paw-based.

And Terry knew.

Favorites are funny like that.
They are not always announced.
Sometimes they are simply understood.
Like sunshine through a window.
Warm.
Uncomplicated.
Still very much there.