Celebrate your child's love of learning

© Wondertime

My grandmother handed me the past and the future and loved me right out her front door.

You would never guess by looking at me that I have a little old lady living inside me. She's an 82-year-old black woman who eats fish and grits for breakfast but knows what caviar tastes like. She knows no strangers, and everyone is welcome at her table. Look past my painted-on jeans from Old Navy, past my honey-brown dreadlocks and cynical smirk; see her toothy grin and favorite housecoat, the flowers on it faded from fuchsia to pale pink. I rush through housework like the chore it is, but the little old lady inside me makes sure I don't accidentally touch anyone with my broom straws (lest I sweep them out of my life) or put shoes on the bed (worse luck than 10 broken mirrors and a dozen black cats). My Ivy League education would be nothing if it didn't exist alongside her knowledge of the proper way to wring a chicken's neck and how a lady should sit in public (knees together). I grimace a bit less through Pennsylvania winters because the little old lady inside me has red Georgia clay and Florida sunshine coursing through her veins. She is a generous, straight-shooting daughter of the South. She is the definition of old school. She is my grandmother, whom I called Nay-Nay.

I can see her in the distance, clutching an oversize handbag, walking briskly along the sidewalk. Her dark brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and black sunglasses shade her eyes from the sun. She sees me coming, my arms outstretched, my brown legs pumping. As I draw closer, a grin takes over her face. I am 2 years old, then 3, 4, 5, and up, running to meet Nay-Nay as she walks home from the bus stop after work. This was the highlight of my early childhood days in the 1970s:
5 o'clock, when Nay-Nay came home.

Nay-Nay was more than my maternal grandmother; she was my second mother, not because my mother was incapable of raising me alone, but simply because my mother and I lived with Nay-Nay from the time I was born until I went off to college. My father did not play an active role in my life, but Nay-Nay was not a surrogate daddy. She had unique grandma wisdom and was encouraging and caring. Some of what I learned at Nay-Nay's knee — to make flapjacks, to maintain good hygiene, to consider myself worthy of the best life has to offer — were things my mother also taught and reinforced.

But my mother was…well, my mother. My relationship with Nay-Nay was uncomplicated, unburdened by the innate tug-of-war that can be central to mother-daughter relationships. So Nay-Nay and I were free to just enjoy each other's company. From our bus rides downtown to my ?rst attempt at scram­bling eggs, Nay-Nay made me feel like every — thing I did was wonderful, special. That I was wonderful, special.

In my neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida, it was not unusual for a kid and her family to live with a grandmother, or for a grandmother to be a primary caregiver. Grandmothers simply were part of our ex-tended but very present families. Along with aunts, uncles, and cousins, grandmothers (and the occasional grandfather) were a big part of our daily lives, sharing food, housing, money, and child care responsibilities. Until I was bused to a predominantly white elementary school on the other side of town, I didn't know any kids who lived only with their nuclear families.

I believe kids become better people for having grandparents actively involved in their lives. Grandparents, as living history, help their grandchildren establish their own place in the world, giving them a sense of connection and purpose. Grandparents encourage and teach with a certain remove, free of the hand-wringing and battles of wills that come with parenting. Their influence is so deeply ingrained that we view our compassion for others or our work ethic as simply part of who we are. But truly we carry timelessness, all that's good about the good ol' days. We live our lives in part to make our grandparents proud, and to fulfill the promise they told us we held.

Having a little old lady inside you has its downside, of course. I insist that my daughters walk on soft feet indoors as I was made to do as a child, and most of the time they do. Another sound-related rule of Nay-Nay's: No whistling in the house. I wonder, is this really a matter of etiquette (as I tell my girls), or is it that I can't get Nay-Nay's gender-specific warning — a whistling woman and a crowing hen both come to bad ends — out of my head?

The upsides, however, are many. I turn to Nay-Nay's unwritten recipes when it's time to cook for company. Nay-Nay liked cooking, even when the "friend" she called Arthur (arthritis) made it painful to stand at the stove. Feeding people was an act of love. At our house back then, as at my house today, there was always room at the table for folks just stopping by. Almost every week when I was in elementary school, Nay-Nay brought home little adventures, usually packaged in white or brown paper bags. Even though too many aches and pains and too little money kept her from being physically adventurous, Nay-Nay's palate traveled the world via downtown Jacksonville; from my kid's-eye view it could have been New Orleans or Greece.

Elliot's Deli served exotic treats I'd never heard of, like baklava, New England clam chowder, seafood gumbo, and kosher pickles. Once she brought home caviar, and we were Rockefellers for a day. With Nay-Nay as my tour guide, downtown became a summertime destination. There were big, noisy city buses with fellow passengers who might give a wide-eyed little girl a quarter just for being cute. These simple experiences made me curious about life beyond my neighborhood. Though we never discussed it, I believe Nay-Nay intended to give me a taste of the world.

During the summers, when school was out, other neighborhood grandmas cared for me while my mom worked, because Nay-Nay worked too. She had been a domestic, and for 40 years operated a manual elevator in downtown hotels and office buildings, standing on her feet eight hours a day (a nearby stool was to be used only when there were no passengers). I thought her job was very exciting, unaware of the debilitating foot and leg problems that would plague her later, nor of that handful of passengers who stared straight ahead and routinely ignored Nay-Nay's warm greeting. Nay-Nay had only an eighth grade education and wanted more for me. No wonder she didn't respond when, at age 5, I declared my ambition to grow up and drive the elevators just like her. No wonder she agreed to let me try my hand at the crank only once or twice during the many summers I spent riding up and down with her.

My grandmother gave me one of the greatest gifts you can give a child: a sense of limitless potential. Nay-Nay wanted me to take full advantage of the opportunities denied her. Without her stories of Jim Crow and legal segregation, I would have taken for granted the many educational, social, and cultural experiences I had at my disposal. I belong to what has been called Generation X, a group characterized in popular culture as aimless, cynical slackers. When your grandmother has scrubbed white people's ?oors and been called "girl" as a grown woman, cynicism might be in order, but slacking and being aimless just aren't options.

I know I routinely taxed my single mother's nerves and untested parenting skills (she was 18 when I was born). In tears, I would rush to Nay-Nay's room, climb into bed with her, and twine my ?ngers with hers. Nay-Nay deferred to my mother in all decisions related to me, but I still felt like she was on my side whenever I got into trouble. Nay-Nay would listen and make sympathetic noises as I pleaded my case. Only decades later did it dawn on me that she never actually spared me any consequences. She usually just murmured something like, "Be a good girl now," as we held hands and I got lost in her thick middle and broad hips, a safe haven from my mother's understandable frustration.

My mother sacrificed and made me the number one priority in her life. She loved me, but Nay-Nay loved me in a different way. My young mother had always seen my life as inextricably tied to hers. I was, she said, an answer to a prayer, someone whose love and need for her was absolute. While sometimes parents can see their children as extensions of themselves, grandparents can love in a way that is, for lack of a better word, detached, free of the deeper emotional investment parents must make. I believe it was this detachment that allowed Nay-Nay to look at the world through my eyes, something my mother, who was rather overprotective, could not always do.

So it was Nay-Nay, not my mother, who gave me her blessing to go away to college. Even after scoring well on my PSATs and receiving recruitment letters from colleges across the country, I intended to apply only to schools in Florida. I threw away the letters I received from Harvard and Yale, unopened. The Northeast was as alien to me as the North Pole; I thought black people from the South didn't go to college up there. Then I received a second letter, this one handwritten by a black junior at Yale who was from Columbus, Georgia. I took him up on his offer to call and talk about his experiences and why I should apply.

I got into Yale, along with two colleges in Florida. My mother wanted me to stay instate. I'm sure Nay-Nay shared my mother's fears about me going so far away to an experience neither of them knew firsthand, but she did not share my mother's inability to cut the umbilical cord. While sympathetic toward my mother's concerns, she ultimately encouraged my wings: "Go, baby, if that's where you want to go."

Nay-Nay handed me the past and the future and loved me right out her front door, beyond the world she knew, and into a world she told me was mine. If I partied a lot less than the typical college student, maybe it was because Nay-Nay had taught me that in public, I represented not only myself, but black folks in general, and that I should always represent well. If I stayed in my dorm room and studied some Saturday nights while my roommates were out and about, maybe it was because I knew that a strong GPA was the bridge beyond those elevator cars Nay-Nay had to drive.

I said good-bye to Nay-Nay three years ago when she died of colon cancer at the age of 82. While her long life did not include the travel and rest and peace of mind that I wished for her, I know that I am fulfilling her wishes for me by raising a close-knit family and pursuing a career of my choosing. She said to me throughout my life, "Dee, I just want you to be happy." I am, thanks in large part to a little old lady inside me.

About the Author: Deesha Philyaw is passing Nay-Nay's secret fried chicken recipe down to her daughters, Peyton, 4, and Taylor, 9.