ONE DAY IN FEBRUARY IN THE YEAR OF THE TIGER…

We woke up at half past four to a sky that was dark and frigidly cold with Venus still hanging low with a steady glitter. It was Sunday 6 February and we were taking the early morning flight to Athens and then a connecting flight to Brussels…to meet someone very special…born just before midnight on 3 February in the year of the Water Tiger and in the month of Aquarius the Water Bearer. It was an exciting moment for Yiannis and myself…walking on clouds and grinning under our masks, lugging two suitcases…one with baby clothes, presents for the couple and…washing up liquid…Ava with lemon…a special request from the new mother.

 In the past when we used to pick Annie and Laurent up at the airport, I used to gaze around and watch older people like us wait anxiously outside the arrivals lounge, tip toeing and peering over the heads of others and then yelling out in delight and waving frantically to attract the attention of the new arrivals. They were there to greet their children, pushing toddlers in prams or dragging little  howling kids behind them, displaying signs of petulance after being strapped in a seat on a plane for what seemed like endless hours. I could never peel my eyes off them because…well…who doesn’t dream of having grandchildren. So when Annie and Laurent visited last summer and announced they were expecting a child, we were ecstatic. Throughout her pregnancy…morning sickness and other discomforts, we talked about it on the phone…she in Brussels and me in Chania. She told me that she subsisted on dry rice cakes because she couldn’t keep anything else down and I told her that I had survived on fistfuls of sour kumquats my father-in-law proffered every morning from our tree. She complained that the only smell that didn’t turn her stomach was washing up liquid…and she yearned for Ava with lemon… and I said that I had torn down all the curtains in the house because the smell of linen made me retch.

 But when I started giving defunct advice dredged out from my own blurry memories of more than 30 years ago, it was politely endured with silence or discarded with irritation. So I finally had to admit that I was an old dinosaur lagging behind modern science that had sprinted on ahead. My offering of a mouthful of tips during gestation were painfully outdated so I learnt to clamp my tongue down and just listen, which was a difficult task for the likes of me…a once upon a time teacher who doled out buckets of unsolicited advice to the helpless prisoners in my classroom and to their parents who waited outside.

Now, the day so long awaited had finally come. We arrived in Brussels in the mist and sleet and met our delightful granddaughter curled up in her cot, a soft cap falling way down to her eyes, swaddled in a quilt, sleeping peacefully…The thing about grandparents is this. First we wring our hands anxiously and pray that the baby is born healthy and well… and… once we’ve checked all fingers and toes and wiped away our tears…we proceed… shamelessly to scrutinize the little crumpled face and balled up fists and look for familiar features and ascribe them to members of our family or ourselves. Yiannis started even before we left Chania for Brussels. Annie had sent us two pictures just after Louise’s birth and he studied them carefully and  then mulled over them. I started with…` She looks a lot like him, doesn’t she?’… There was no response from him. He appeared to be reading the news on his laptop. Then out of the blue he blurted out…` But the chin is Annie’s and mine.’… I murmured in agreement after peering at the photos again…` And the lips!!!’…he exclaimed. There I had to wrestle ownership from him… `They’re certainly Annie’s lips but not yours…they’re MINE!!!… especially the lower lip!!! ‘… On the plane, way up in the clouds, he started claiming the nose… ` I tell you it’s MINE!!!. ‘

 Little Louise’s other grandparents drove all the way from France, laden with baby clothes, socks, bibs and shoes and tons and tons of pampers and a fondue stove complete with pieces of chicken and beef to plunge into a stock with forks of long coloured handles, salads, cheeses and wines and dessert. In Greece there is a saying…` mazi me to vasilico potizetai kai e glastra ‘…. together with the basil plant, the pot gets watered too. In this case Yiannis and I were the pots… fed and watered along with the main players, the young couple. We sat down with the rest of the family and dug in, enjoying the food tremendously. There was a lot of happiness and good cheer made even more cheerful with free flowing wine and champagne and everyone crooned over the baby and ahh-ed and ooh-ed and…and talked in heightened tones about… who Louise… just over a week old and had no say in the matter… TOOK AFTER. The French grandparents claimed as theirs… the chubby rosy cheeks…[ok we had to reluctantly hand them that]…the eyes…[ WHOA! WHOA!… wait a minute, the shape of the eyes, long and beautiful, were clearly Annie’s and later Yiannis removed his glasses and showed me his hazel eyes…` They’re Mine!!! ‘…he said. All these years I never knew he had hazel eyes…]…` but the eyes may turn blue ‘… so the other camp claimed and…` the hair may turn blonde’ …just like their son’s and daughter’s etc…and then before we could think of a repartee, they dived in swiftly and possessed the nose. IT WAS ALL THEIRS!!!…[BACK OFF! BACK OFF! TOO LATE!… Yiannis had already staked his claim there…and hands off that chin and that lower lip!!!!] Well…the truth is…we…the two pots… were eating their food and so we gulped down everything else with it. I just nodded politely and Yiannis sat quietly munching away on their food and imbibing their wine.

After they left, his mother sent me photos of her three children when they were newborns. I perused them…there was a strong resemblance…but something didn’t quite fit in. Every evening, after helping with the baby, the shopping, the ironing and cooking, Yiannis and I would drag ourselves back to the hotel, have a cup of tea and a little rest and then…comb the city for dinner. We would tuck into something scrumptious and savour some delicious wine to soothe our tired limbs and overactive brains. As we chewed on the tasty morsels of Italian, Vietnamese, Thai and fusion food in crowded restaurants where people sat elbow to elbow in dim lights shouting over the din, disregarding pandemic restrictions…we talked about…what was OURS and what was theirs…and that something that didn’t fit in…that little something that we couldn’t put our finger on…the missing pieces of the puzzle.

On the day before we left, I looked into the face of our little grandchild and she frowned…SO THAT’S IT!!!… THAT UNMISTAKABLE FROWN!!!!…one of the missing pieces…Annie has it which she inherited from MY MUM…a legacy from MY FAMILY!!!!… I was overjoyed and before I could relish it thoroughly… little Louise BURPED and Yiannis immediately jumped in…`THAT’S MY BURP, LONG AND PROUD!!!’  So now my friends we have found the missing pieces of the puzzle…until it changes again. So the tug-of war goes on between those on the other side of the border and us…and…between Yiannis and myself.

So cheers till the next time.