Google is the New Grandma

It all started the week before Christmas. My daughter had left a message that she needed my banana bread recipe. I called, tickled that she loved it so much, and before you can say three by five card, she was telling me that she didn’t need my recipe anymore, that she had Googled another recipe instead. But it isn’t MY banana bread recipe I stammered. Oh yes, but its close enough she said, and breezily launched into another conversation. While we talked I tucked the recipe card, stained with oil from so many years of bread making, back into the metal recipe box.

The next blow came when another daughter was to meet me in a nearby town for the funeral of a mutual friend. After discussing who would be there, and what time it started, I began to tell her how to find the funeral home. Again I was dismissed before finishing my sentence, “Don’t worry Mom, I already Googled the directions, I got it!”

Okay, so my recipes are no longer treasured, and my children don’t need me to help them navigate to locations they’ve never been to, but that’s nothing compared to the final blow.

My niece called from work. “Aunt Therese, do you think you could go look at Sophie? I’m at work all day and Brad says she has a rash on her stomach, I’d feel better if you looked at it”. Puffed up with pride that SOMEONE finally needs me I heartily agreed and proceeded to their house hoping to help. Her husband Brad laid Sophie on the couch telling me that she had been running a fever for two days, but that it had finally broken this morning. Her abdomen had a very diffuse coloring to it, not quite a rash, but not hives either. Emily called as we were evaluating the situation and said “Don’t even worry about it Aunt Therese, I Googled it and I know what it is: Roseola. I see photos of it and it shows a mottling of the abdomen and legs and it says that the patient can have a fever that goes for several days, and then when it breaks there is usually this rash that starts. It’s Roseola for sure.” Okay. Yes, well I agree, it’s Roseola.

With WebMD and Allrecipes.com what’s a mother/grandmother to do? People have access to health advice, marital advice, cooking, cleaning and stain removal charts. I have to accept that many of the things I learned from my grandmother and mother will now be taught by Google, but there are still things that I can do that Google can’t. Google can’t hold a grandchild for immunizations while his mother cries out in the waiting room, can’t help pack a duffle bag for a son leaving for world travels, can’t applaud like a wild woman when she sees her grown daughter on stage making it as an actress and most of all can’t stand up and scream at a basketball referee because he called a foul when the player was clearly not blocking!

I can “be there” and be present in my children’s lives as well as my grandchildren, and isn’t that what is most important?

I learned this lesson well as I watched my mother in the last few months of her illness. She had emphysema and had become frail and weakened to the point of almost being bed ridden. Just walking to the bathroom was difficult. One day as I was helping her into the bathtub she began to cry. “Mom, why are you crying?” I asked, worried that she was in pain. “I can’t make pies anymore” she whispered. Weakened from the disease and struggling to breathe it had been a long time since she had done anything that brought her joy, and baking was definitely a joy to her. In this moment I realized more than ever, that I didn’t care if she ever baked another pie, or attended another event with me, I didn’t care if she was bedridden and required assistance for every movement. All I cared was that she was still here, still present, and still my mom. I told her this very thing, and I’d like to think it brought her some comfort. So if I can’t be the font of knowledge to my children and grandchildren, I can still be present.

Oh I’m running to keep up with technology, I’m Facebooking, Tweeting and yes, I’m Googling like the rest of them. “If you can’t beat em”, isn’t that how it goes?

Is the Internet making us obsolete? Just when I thought so my 12 year old grandson texted me: “Grandma, are you coming to my basketball game today?” to which I texted back “Duh!”