The Business of Grandmothers

“You are a grandmother?” Ana says. We’re hiking up to an Alaskan glacier on the first day of our tour. She’s from Asia and speaks better English than I do.

I point to my oldest grandson. “I have five grandchildren.” He’s bouncing up the three-mile trail like a young deer. I will never catch up.

“Grandmothers in my country don’t do things like this.” Ana is probably a few years younger than me but still in potential grandma range.

“Like what?”

“Hike.”

I smile because I think she must be kidding. She does not smile back.

“Then what do grandmothers do in your country?” I pause and look at her.

“They cook and clean and take care of grandchildren.” Ana is a doctor, for heaven’s sake. Her first grandchild is due in four months.

“Is that what you’ll do when the baby is born?”

“My daughter expects it of me,” Ana says.

I see the glacier now. “My children expect a lot of things from me. It doesn’t mean I do them.”

Ana smiles and keeps walking. My grandson and my sons frolic on the glacier already, crunching up and sliding down. Ana and I stand at the bottom. She’s probably thinking what

I’m thinking—broken hips.

I’m glad I wore my hiking boots with their heavy tread. I don’t bound up the glacier, but I walk steadily to where my progeny plays. The boys throw glacier snowballs and shove each other down the hill.

The guide calls us back. I’m happy to see Ana and her husband inched up the glacier for a few minutes.

The boys rush past, and I dig the edge of my boots into the ice to help me ease down—broken hips and all that.

My grandson races back down the trail. He’ll get there ten minutes before I do, but I will get there.

Because I am a grandmother and that is what I do.