Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 10, 1994 TAG: 9412070020
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Maybe it's not a stranger at all, but the neighbor lady down the street. Maybe she's only gone an hour or so - and she leaves the telephone number where she can be reached - but she worries nonetheless.
Or maybe she gets lucky, as I did. Maybe she meets Josephine Saunders, the gracious YMCA nursery worker who spent weekday mornings tending children as a member of the League of Older Americans Foster Grandparent Program.
Maybe she cries the first time she leaves him, as I did, even though she's just across the hall in the Nautilus room - only 15 paces away. Maybe she checks on him religiously, as I did, only to find him happily rocking on Josephine's lap, drinking a bottle or practicing his new melt-you smile.
``I've never left him before,'' I told Josephine guiltily the first morning I handed him over. ``He's only six weeks old.''
``We'll take care of him; we LOVE babies,'' she said.
``But he likes to be held - a lot,'' I explained.
``We'll take care of him, don't worry,'' she said. ``I love to hold babies.''
And she did. She held him, rocked him, sang to him and made him smile. For an hour or so three mornings a week, Josephine gave me what every mother of a collicky infant needs: a break.
\ Barbara James doesn't know how she'll replace Josephine. The LOA's Foster Grandparent director, James had never had a volunteer who did so much for so many.
Always the first to volunteer for a task, Josephine sat on the group's advisory board and was the recipient last May of its first annual Grandparent of the Year award.
``I can't explain it,'' James said. ``She was just a person who was always so devoted to her family, her community, her church - even when she was hurting herself, she seemed to always be more concerned about other people.''
Margaret Gills, a Y member with four children, is searching for the right words to comfort her kids, especially her 6-year-old son, Daniel.
``The day after I told him, he came home from school and asked me, `Did you hear anything about Grandma Josephine today?' Like maybe it wasn't true after all.''
Josephine was the only person her daughter, Erin, now 3, would take a bottle from when Gills weaned her at 12 months. ``Josephine was just so patient and gentle - the kids just loved her. She was a person you knew you could trust.''
The Y's staff is struggling, too. ``She was just so affable that everyone wanted to talk to her,'' director Cal Johnson explains. ``All the staff and the moms, too - everyone wanted to stop by and see her. But her focus was always on the children.
``She was the perfect role model; she modeled exactly how you're supposed to take care of children.''
\ I was on the Stairmaster machine last Saturday morning when I heard the news: Grandma Josephine had died earlier in the week. She was 65.
On her way to the Y, she had stopped to have her car checked when an aneurism burst in her brain. They rushed her to Community Hospital - but not until the car dealership phoned the Y to let them know she wouldn't be there that morning; Josephine insisted.
``That's how focused she was on the kids,'' Johnson says.
So focused that her son, Samuel Thompson, tried for years to convince her to ease up on the volunteer work. But Josephine didn't budge.
So focused that I found myself stopping in at the nursery to see her almost weekly. Though she hadn't seen Max since he started day care three months ago, she always asked about him.
``I miss little Max. How is he?''
He cut a second tooth, I'd tell her. He's pulling up in his crib now.
He's very close to crawling, I told her two weeks ago, the last time I saw her.
I thought of Josephine this morning as I walked past the Y nursery. Out of habit, I even looked through the nursery window, though I knew she wasn't there.
Like Gills' heartsick 6-year-old, I wanted to hope that maybe it wasn't true.
I wanted to tell Grandma Josephine that Max had taken his first crawling step.
\ Beth Macy is a features department staff writer and Thursday columnist. For information on becoming a Foster Grandparent, call Barbara James at 345-0451.
by CNB