CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL: BEING GRANDMA. My Story Published!

I had written a story to be submitted to Chicken Soup For The Soul: Being Grandma and it was published!! There are 101 Grandma stories, with themes such as: The Joy of Becoming a Grandmother, From the Mouth of Babes, That Mutual Unconditional Love, Fun and Laughs, Grand and Great Adventures and many more exciting topics all related to “grandmothering”.

My Story: A Visit To The Cemetery

Here is a taste of the story:

It was mid-October and we were on our way to the Halloween Store.  My nine-year-old grandson, Nathan was looking for a specific costume and Mom said it was OK for us to buy it.

His eleven-year-old sister, Jasmine told me she would make her own costume and it was to be a surprise! No hints!

We were greeted by a green monster towering over the store entrance. Spider webs coated the walls, sinister clowns popped out from dark corners, and it seemed that every single aisle held rows of face paint, glitter and freaky masks, just in case you hadn’t noticed them earlier.

There were also ghoulish hands dripping fake blood, horrible witch masks covered in warts and frightening mummies with bandages coming undone. I’m glad the grands were old enough to know that it was all for show; most of it was rather distasteful to my eyes.

We did not find the longed for costume (don’t ask me which one, it’s from a TV show), but we did manage to spend a good amount of time checking out all the other scary items.

On our way home, Jasmine asked if we could visit the cemetery, where her great-grandparents were buried.  As it was a mild and pleasant day and I was in no hurry to get the children back home, I agreed. Besides, they’d been asking for ages and it never seemed to be the right time, or it was too cold, rainy, snowy, whatever…

It didn’t take long to arrive at the cemetery. We got out of the car and walked among the headstones towards my parents grave, kicking up autumn leaves as we went. The children were entranced. I don’t think they’d ever been in a cemetery before. It was all new to them and different from what they’d seen on TV.  This was real.

Nathan commented on the abundance of flowers embellishing certain graves and how others looked so barren. Jasmine was interested in reading information on the stones.

“Oh my goodness, this person died way way before my Mom was born!  Maybe even you, Grandma and you’re old!”  I had to laugh.

I let them explore and eventually we came to my parents grave. They had been cremated and their ashes buried together (way back in 1998).

“Where are the flowers?” Nathan looked at me curiously.

“Um, well, I haven’t been here in quite a long time.”  Actually it had been years.

“Can I take some from this grave (he pointed to one nearby) and give it to Great Grandma and Grandpa?”

Eeks! I was horrified but calmly replied, ”No, that’s not very nice. We don’t do that.”

“But they have lots and lots of flowers!” Couldn’t argue with a child’s logic, but it just didn’t seem right.

“Tell you what, we’ll look in the woods over there and pick one for your great grandparents.”

So off we went in search of a wildflower or two…..  You’ll have to read the rest of it when Chicken Soup For The Soul: Being Grandma is available to purchase on March 10, 2026.

I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing for this delicious and fun publication.