Growing Up

There's that emotional conflict
when a grandmother is confronted
with her grandchild's inexorable
loss of childhood. The infant she
helped raise is now indisputably
growing into adulthood. One
knows that to be so, for she has
announced that when she visits
she would like her hair professionally
cut and styled, and a visit to La Senza
is also in the works for bras to
be properly fitted to her size.
But the child is not yet gone.

For, she asks, please, to have her baby
blankie, please, please, mended. And
when it is recommended she mend it
herself she says she cannot, and this
time she would be pleased to thread
the needle, grandma, so ... please?
After it's washed, then, growls the
grandmother to the child's undisguised
horror, for washing the threadbare
memento of childhood would most
certainly cause total, irrevocable
disintegration. Grandma, please!