I Love Love Love When He's Buddies With His Grandma

From Liz, who thinks it's adorable when a guy can hang with his bubbe:

I heart Grandma's boys!

Shortly after my first date with the man I’d soon refer to as “the heart-melter,” he stopped by my workplace to bring me his favorite sweet treat—caramel wafers—and I thought it was impossible for him to top this gesture. I always get a little excited when a potential partner comes to see me at work. It’s like Show-and-Tell day in school and I get a moment to feel important while I bear witness to my glowing new romance in front of my co-workers. Suck it, married folk.  

At this point I knew very little about his everyday routines, so when I asked him how it was going, I was shocked to hear him say, “Pretty good. Took my grandmother out to breakfast.” 

He then told me he took his 90 year-old grandma out for breakfast every morning. Okay…weird. Cute, but weird. Every day? Every… day? I later found out he had moved back to his hometown five years ago and that he had vowed to stay here until his grandma passed.  

I realized then what was going on: he loved his grandma SO much that he wanted to squeeze in as much time with her as he could. Taking her out to breakfast was not an act of mercy, but borne out of pure lovey-dovey family love. That kind of loyalty is so rare to find that I felt guilty for previously wondering how his schedule allowed for it, and if being a “grandmama’s boy” was a thing.  

I learned that his grandma was the one who taught him how to cook, that she made biscuits every single day, and that she was some sort of award-winning cheese-making queen of the Southeast. I pictured the two of them kneading bread and shuffling around the kitchen together, and it may or may not have triggered an embarrassingly swoony sigh. Okay, it totally did.