I try that name on, but it feels like a jacket that just doesn't fit. I want to rip it off and throw it down.

I'm certainly old enough. My mother was 39 when she gained that title, and I think her mother was 35 when I made my debut.

I'm, well, older.

When my niece was born, my mother asked to be called Nanny. I'm not sure if that was to distinguish her from the other grandmothers—we had a bunch at that time because of divorces and remarriages—or whether she was having a hard time with her new position. Of course, at that time I was 21 and thought this sort of vanity was ridiculous.

I know now it's not vanity. Pshaw. It's stepping into a new station in life that has something to do with getting a huge dose of gray hair and deeper wrinkles, and my mother was too young.

My husband wants to be called Cousin. Of course we all laugh, but I understand what he's saying.

It's a little like what's happening at our family reunions.

My husband and I used to belong in the second tier, that's couples with young children, the first tier being the children. My aunts and uncles were in the third tier. Then there was the top tier, my grandmother and her brothers and sisters—the ancient ones.

My husband and I have moved up a tier to the aunts and uncles, and they, poor things, have moved on up to the top tier.

It's not that I don't value this new station in life. I've loved my aunts and uncles. They have been the source of many wonderful family events, stories, laughs and a great family support during the tough times, and the darlings did most of the work at the family reunions.

And as for my grandmother, she was my mainstay through some very bumpy days when my parents struggled with such trifles as alcoholism, divorce and chronic depression and then their recovery from all those things.

Of course there was the other grandmother, my mother's mother, who actually ran for president of the United States and once seceded from the Union over a land dispute. She was a terror, even got into a knock-down, drag-out with my mother once. I actually saw it.

That grandmother asked me once why I liked the other grandmother better. I told her it was because she gave me presents.

That wasn't the real reason. It's just at age 6, I didn't know what else to say. I was sensitive enough to know that I could hurt her terribly if I told her my other grandmother was much kinder, much more loving and even more fun. I lived with the kind grandmother off and on over the years. I remember how lovingly she prepared meals for us, chicken fricassee, her wonderful brand of chili, graham crackers with chocolate frosting and the graham cracker cake she made because it was my favorite. She let me gather the eggs from the chickens in her backyard. I'll never forget the tenderness she showed when I sat down on a water glass, broke it and it cut my derrière. I begged not to go to the doctor because I was afraid and embarrassed, so she tended it, cleaned it over days. She knew the small, one-inch scar wouldn't show, and she made me promise that if it didn't heal right we would go to the doctor. My cut healed just fine and though I think the scar has disappeared, the memory of her understanding and kindness lives on.

Grandma spent the last year or two living with my father and stepmother. The last time I saw her, she was sitting in their living room crying. She did that a lot in those final days. I don't know why. I wish I could have made her waning time here a little sweeter the way she did for me.

She died in 1982, and there are times when I think of her and want to simply hug her and thank her.

So anyway I'm moving up into this new station in life. My son and his wife are the kind of parents anyone would wish for children, and they are in love with their little girl. I am too. Maybe my new station in life will be OK with me. Maybe it will fit. Anyway, that's what my friends and my sister say. My sister doesn't seem to have a problem at all with the name Grandma.

Sandy Sims is the editor of the Sunnyvale Sun, a sister paper of the Willow Glen Resident. She can be reached at 408.200.1055 or ssims@svcn.com.