When’s the last time you unplugged from your phone? Hannah Brencher reveals what we might discover.
Elisa
Lessons from the Substitute Granny
By Hannah Brencher
Shortly after I started unplugging, my husband, Lane, suggested we get out for a spontaneous date night. Honesty hour: since having a baby, my spontaneity has severely fizzled. For me lately, spontaneity is changing up the taco seasoning we use at dinnertime.
We picked a reliable spot—one of our favorite restaurants, one that plants firepits all over the back patio during the colder seasons.
We found a firepit toward the back of the patio and began our predinner date night ritual: a few glorious minutes of sitting and reading silently without anyone asking us for a snack.
Not even five minutes after we cracked open our books, an older woman with a bold pixie cut and wire-rimmed glasses strolled up to our firepit. A regal-looking greyhound stood on a leash beside her.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” she asked, motioning toward the Adirondack chair across from us. “I promise not to say a word.”
I looked around the patio—there were plenty of open spaces and vacant firepits to choose from. We invited her to take a seat. We returned to our books, reading approximately two sentences before the woman began a conversation.
“Are you from around here?”
At that moment, I sat up straighter. Even though I wanted to keep reading, I felt this little nudge that seemed to whisper, Just pay attention.
I think these nudges happen more than we realize, but they require our full attention and readiness. They’re often easily missed, but, when you lean in to listen, they have the power to change everything.
The woman’s name was Leah. She lived in the neighborhood, directly across the street from where our daughter had just started preschool a week earlier. She was from Florida. She had two daughters who were my age. She was a proud “granny” to two identical grandkids with fiery red hair. She pulled out her phone to show me pictures. From that point forward, she referred to herself as the “substitute granny”—making it clear that she was happy to be a babysitter whenever we needed her.
The more she spoke, the more I wondered about her. I wondered if she was lonely. Maybe she came to this spot often, not to sit silently by the fire but to try to find people to talk to.
Our conversation flowed from loneliness during the pandemic to God, motherhood, and careers. I cried openly at times, feeling refreshed by her presence. It felt like sitting with an older version of myself, someone far enough ahead to look back and assure me that life would have hardships, but I’d emerge stronger than I ever thought possible.
Our conversation lasted two hours. My phone stayed face down on the chair the whole time. We exchanged numbers before parting ways. My phone pinged almost immediately after she walked away.
“I’m the substitute granny!” she wrote. Smiley face emoji.
As we walked toward dinner, I marveled at the meeting and how it may not have happened if we’d been on our phones. I couldn’t tell if those two hours were more for her or for me. It didn’t matter. This was a gift to us both. A divine meeting I could easily have missed.
It was a powerful reminder of just how much we need the physical presence of others, especially after a pandemic that left a lot of us lonely and seeking connection. We need to be able to sit across from one another at tables, meet up in coffee shops, and find our way toward one another at random firepits. It’s that old Ram Dass quote put into practice: “We’re all just walking each other home.” And while there are apps for nearly everything in life—from apps that tell you the weather to apps that report the best time for you to run to the bathroom during a movie—there is still no app that can simulate the human connection we need to keep us moving forward.
Those moments are always available to us, but we have to fight for them more and more in this increasingly digital age.
We must fight to pay attention to the people unexpectedly placed in our pathways.
We must fight to make small talk with the strangers in the checkout line because we need those tiny, brief connections just as much as we need deeper relationships. And sometimes other people need them even more.
We must fight for the moments that are so good and rich and connective that they make us forget to check our phones entirely.
A few months later, Lane and I found ourselves back at the same restaurant, with our books in hand. We sat at a small table outside the restaurant. A few tables down, we noticed a couple talking with a familiar woman and her greyhound. It looked like she’d been sitting at their table with them, but she walked away a few minutes later.
I asked the couple if they knew her. The man shrugged his shoulders and took another sip of his drink. “Never met her before,” he said. “She just asked if she could pull up a chair.”
I smiled. The substitute granny was at it again.
Hannah Brencher is a writer, TED speaker, and entrepreneur. She founded The World Needs More Love Letters, a global community dedicated to sending letter bundles to those who need encouragement. Named as one of the White House’s “Women Working to Do Good,” Hannah has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah, Glamour, USATODAY.com, the Chicago Tribune, and more. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, Lane, and daughter Novalee. Her newest book, The Unplugged Hours, releases September 17, 2024. Find Hannah at hannahbrencher.com.
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