My granddaughter plays favourites. She’s 15 months, with a spattering of words and a dazzling smile. She loves all in her inner circle, but she loves my mother, her great-grandmother, most. “Nonny!” she calls when she sees me. “Nonny!”
I am not Nonny, but catching sight of me means that my mother might appear.
“Nonny! Nonny! Nonny!” she darts about, searching.
As a toddler, my son invented my mother’s grandmother name. His father is of Italian descent and his father’s parents wished to be “Nonna” and “Nonno”. This did not stick. Instead, my mother became “Nonny” and the paternal set of grandparents The Two Nonnies like an Italo-Australian version of the Two Ronnies. Nonny seemed to suit my mother more than her birth name ever had, and in time, everyone began calling her that. With no real effort she’d become someone new.
I’d just turned 45 when my granddaughter was born and finding my grandmother name has proved a little tricky. My nanna is still alive, so that name is taken. “Grandma” feels too formal. “Grammy” was snapped up by her grandmother on the other side. Nothing seemed to fit. I procrastinated too long and she began to call me Jessie, which she pronounces “Cheshie”. Though not transforming, this suits me fine.
My mother and I live together in lush hinterland country and my granddaughter lives in the next house along. We babysit once a week or so, which is an exhausting joy. Even before my granddaughter was crawling, she would raise her arms in the air and squeal with pleasure at the sight of my mother. When Nonny held her, the baby would bring her face close and stare with great intensity into her eyes.
“Maybe she’s fascinated by the colour?” my mother offered tentatively. She has unusual, light green eyes. I did not think this was the reason. My granddaughter looked like she was trying to commune with my mother’s soul. But what do we know about the intentions of babies?
It is disconcerting to be so second fiddle. When she toddles around me to reach my mother, my son says, “Don’t give up!” and with a pang I think perhaps I can work harder for her affection. But I know babies are like cats; if you come on too strong, they will spurn you. I stand back and let the soft animal of her body love what it loves.
On these babysitting days, as my granddaughter showers my mother with love, I observe. She climbs up next to her on the couch – saying, “cuddle, cuddle” – snuggling in tight against my mother’s body. She sits on her lap and eats her breakfast, food she won’t touch in her own home. She follows her from room to room. If my mother exits without her, she cries until she returns. My mother receives this love with calm equanimity, but I can see she is delighted. She lets the baby come to her, all patient receptivity. I watch this dance and I know it’s a window into how she must have mothered me. The flow between them is deeply familiar; I feel it in my bones.
I say, “She’s little, isn’t she?” Both my sons were baby giants and, comparatively, my granddaughter is petite. I was famously tiny as a baby, so I’m fishing for resemblance.
“It’s hard to know,” my mother says. “We don’t have any other babies around to compare.”
“Her little legs!” I am delighting in her from a distance.
“They’re so different from how yours were,” my mother observes. “She’s muscular, whereas you had those tiny calves.”
I nod, my scrawny calves still with me.
If I close my eyes, I can see my mother, young and lovely, and me, a petite and demanding toddler, issuing my commands: “Cuddle, cuddle, cuddle.” Being delightedly received.
I have lived with my mother most of my life. A dubious claim to fame. There are reasons, of course, for this series of choices. I have written two memoirs to explain. But there is also the reality of who my mother is and who we are together. This dynamic, this flow. Close, but also spacious.
I know mother-daughter relationships are often fraught. I see this reflected in the culture around me. I hear it in the stories of my friends. Mothers: overbearing, overanxious, demanding, needy, passive-aggressive, judgmental, neglectful. I have lost count of the number of times someone has uttered, “I could never live with my mother!” And yet, when (and if) we become mothers, we hope that it can be different. That we won’t reenact these patterns. That our children will feel both loved and free.
I leave off watching their dance of connection and go to hang out a load of washing. When I return, I can hear my granddaughter crying.
“Watch out!” my mother calls, “She’s behind the door.”
I open it a crack and she is standing there waiting.
“Cheshie!” she says. “Cheshie!”
I lift her on to my hip and she snuggles against me. Cuddle, cuddle, cuddle. My turn has finally come.
• Jessie Cole is the author of four books, most recently the memoirs Staying and Desire, A Reckoning. More about her here
