“Tell them Mrs. Griffin is here…”

I'm guessing it was 2003-ish. My husband and I decided to take my maternal grandmother out for Sunday brunch to an elegant tavern just down the road from where she lived.

It was very "Connecticut Gold Coast" and that's why she loved it. After my grandparents got divorced in 1980, after 41 years of marriage, my grandmother got the man of her dreams: a wealthy "old money" banker from Darien, who belonged to the Wee Burn Country Club. They never married, but when he died in 1996, he left her everything.

As was the case on most Sundays, not only was there a long wait for a table, but there was a long line of folks waiting to get their names on the waiting list.

Without hesitation, she went to the front of the line and declared, "Tell them Mrs. Griffin is here."

My husband and I cringed and rolled our eyes at each other. I probably said something like, "I guess this is why my mother is convinced she's a narcissist." Of course, I was convinced my mother was a narcissist, too.

I honestly can't remember what happened next, except that we didn't move to the front of the line and get a table. I think we ended up going somewhere else.

About 10 years later I became my Grandmother's legal guardian (and I finally got to see just how much money she had inherited from her wealthy boyfriend).

She was still living in her modest home, alone. Everyone in the family, not to mention her neighbors, knew it was unsafe, but no one really wanted to deal with her. She was imperious and mean and coquettish and seductive and manipulative. And sometimes physically violent. I hired an "in-home assistance" service and it wasn't unusual for the person who was assigned to her to quit.

She wanted help but only on her terms. She saw herself as a "society lady" who deserved to have a servant (or three) whom she could order around and who would do her bidding without question.

You might wonder why she chose me, rather than one of her three children. Her son lived overseas; her youngest daughter, lived across the country, and my mother, even though she was a seven-hour car ride way...well...on some level, Grandma knew it wouldn't go well.

"I want to make her suffer," my mother said to me on more than one occasion, indicating that she'd force her to move out of her home and into a nursing home.

Then there was the time my mother schemed to take my grandmother's car away from her, and enlisted my help. I agreed that my grandmother should no longer be driving and I agreed that having a conversation with my grandmother about it would be hard.

The plan was to go for a visit, wait until my grandmother lay down for her afternoon nap, then my mother would slip the car keys out of my grandmother’s purse and drive her car away, and I would follow in my car. Grandma's car, a 1980's era Honda, was to be donated to a church.

My mother was, by turns, terrified and gleeful. The gleeful part decided to let her mother think that her car had been stolen, because the terrified part was afraid to be honest.

When we returned to my home, and my mother told my husband that she wanted Grandma to think her car had been stolen, he was shocked and told her the right thing to do would be to call and tell my grandmother the truth. Which my mother finally did.

When I think back on that time, I see how much fear was running our relationships. I was too terrified of my mother to say it was a bad idea and not go along with it, and my mother was too terrified of her mother to be an adult about it.

In that moment I saw the same little girl inside her that I saw in myself.

~~~~~

Now, when I share the "Tell them Mrs. Griffin is here" story, people usually laugh and say how awesome it is.

"You're just like Grandma" was the ultimate insult in my family.

And the older I get the more I realize how much I am like her. And that thrills me and terrifies me.

Much, much love,

Karen

P.S. To this day, when my husband and I find ourselves having to wait for something, one of us inevitably says, "Let's just tell them Mrs. Griffin is here."