Missed Messages

My phone buzzes and I glance over to see my granddaughter’s name on caller ID. But it cannot be my granddaughter—she’s nine and doesn’t have a phone. I let it go to voicemail.

The phone buzzes again, same name. I ignore it. It buzzes again.

I pause in my typing to text my son and his wife. “Does B have a phone?”

“No phone,” they text back. “But we let her have a Facebook app on her iPad.”

I have no idea what this means. I glance at Facebook two or three times a day to see photos of friends and family. I thought that was all it did.

My daughter-in-law calls to explain they’ve decided B can use something in Facebook Messenger to call or message a few of her friends. “I control who she can talk to,” the DIL explains.

What the heck is Facebook Messenger? I poke around and discover what seems like thousands of messages posted to me. One says I’ve tried for weeks to get a response. I guess you don’t want to be friends anymore.

Son of a biscuit! No wonder she quit talking to me a few years ago.

I find 23 messages from B asking me to call her. I have no idea how to call her. It’s not like a regular phone number.

Eventually, B calls me, and this time I answer. She talks for 43 minutes. Nonstop.

She calls me a few hours later. It’s like Facetime so I can see her. She spends 15-20 minutes changing the shape of her face with some kind of app.

“Nana has to go to a meeting now, Sweet Girl,” I lie. She keeps talking. I manage to hang up eventually.

The phone buzzes at 6 the next morning. Once again, it’s my granddaughter. I would not even take a phone call from Thor at 6 in the morning.

By the time I’ve had some tea and can focus, I see B has left me 15 messages.

She is my only granddaughter and she is the light of my life. But come on!

I text her mother and tell her I am ready to talk.

“She’s talking with one of her friends,” she texts back. “I’m letting her talk with a few of them.”

I say a prayer of gratitude for friends and get back to my morning.

B hasn’t called me since. Her mom says she talks nonstop to her school friends.

I miss her already.

© Susan Luzader 2022