This is a photo of Grandma Sunderland and her family. Not this Grandma Sunderland, as in me, but rather my father’s mother. Funny thing is, the older cousins all say I look like her. And once, I wrote an essay called “I’m My Own Grandma” which tells the story of me at my sister’s house, making biscuits, shortly after my grandson was born. I wasn’t quite used to being a grandmother yet but I did remember my Grandma Sunderland and her high fluffy biscuits. My sister is the one who, as I pulled them from the oven, the biscuits not the children, said, “You’re Grandma Sunderland!” I, who kept my family name through all my moves and changes.
So here’s the real Grandma Sunderland, standing at the end of a table full of children, her children, her children’s children, and food, and smiling. Circa mid-to late-1950s. She looks pleased. As would I be, and am, when my family gathers.
janetsunderland.com 