Super Granny

Can there be any power in the world to equal a grandmother’s love?  Certainly there’s no question of  the sheer power of the love a woman finds when she becomes a grandmother. But when you combine that love with years of experience you get a formidable force that would make heads of state quake in their boots. These ideas come to mind after Sarah woke up with the flu this morning.

When I called her mother, Emily announced that she had gone home sick yesterday with it and was on her way to the doctor’s office that very minute.  And, Thank You Jesus, Emily has one of those no-nonsense saints of a doctor who will prescribe over the phone for a kid she’s hasn’t actually seen in the office. She knew Emily well enough that she could diagnose and prescribe without actually touching Sarah. 

So when Emily got her Tamiflu prescription she got one for Sarah, as well.  I had already sent her our pharmacy’s phone number.  All I had to do was call the pharmacy, pull up the photo of the insurance card photo Emily sent to me via cell phone, enlarge the picture and print it off, then call to make sure the prescription made it and that Scott could fill it. Easy.

Let’s all give a shout out to my great pharmacy here in the woods.  Everybody goes to Scott’s Pharmacy because everybody knows Scott and trusts him. There’s nothing like a small town pharmacy.

Then, when I showed up with my credit card they told me I had brought Emily’s health insurance card and they needed the prescription card.  So, one more phone call to Emily, then one more set of photos of front and back of card—this time I merely handed the cell phone to the pharmacy clerk.  Ain't technology grand?  I made light conversation with the store employees while I waited—the place was deserted.  Everybody in town must have been either at home to finish their chores or sick in bed. Five minutes later, poof!-- I had Sarah’s prescription in hand.

The exercise reminded me of another Christmas when we were visiting Steve’s family in Ohio.  Emily got a prescription for Essie, age 3, without a problem.  The problem was that all the pharmacies were out of Tamiflu. With very little gnashing of teeth, Steve’s mother got out the yellow pages and started calling.  Going down the alphabet, it wasn’t until she got to Walgrens that she found somebody who had it. I grabbed the checkbook and we headed out. Grandmothers don’t mess around when their babies are sick.

There is special power that comes with grand-motherhood.  By this age we have handled most emergencies that come with being a mother.  Nancy had already run the gauntlet of having Steve break first one arm then the other within the same week and having the elementary school call her in to explain.  A shortage of Tamiflu was small potatoes for her. With experience behind us, Grandmothers are more confident and less beating-around-the-bush-y. We’re not afraid of much.

It reminds me of the scene in Fried Green Tomatoes when the young chick in a sports car cuts the main character off in a parking lot and shouts with glee, “Let’s face it, I’m younger and faster than you.”  Leading Kathy Bates’ character to respond by ramming her car into the sports car over and over and over, reducing it to a crumpled heap of shiny red metal, followed by every mature woman’s new motto:  “Too bad, I’m older and have more insurance than you.”

 

We may not be as glamorous but grandmothers get the job done.

Have a Merry Christmas.  I will post the Paul Crum column for you Christmas morning. Stay healthy.