Grandma's Calendar

As a child, I excelled at one thing: worrying. I would wake up each morning dreading what the day may bring. It was only when I knew the plan for each day ahead of time that I would relax. And if anything deviated from the plan, I would run to my bed, pull the covers over my head, and hide from the world. 

My parents knew that I struggled with worry and so, when I was in third grade, they gave me a gift – an old dusty flip calendar. The flip calendar contained a page for each day of the year, and each page had the month and day etched at the top, but not the year. At the bottom of each page, a message was etched that read like a prediction, such as:

“An exciting opportunity lies ahead of you”

“Plan for many pleasures ahead”

“The decisions you make today will serve you well in the future”

They told me it was Grandma’s calendar. They said Grandma checked it every day, so that Grandma would know what was going to happen that day. They said it would work for me as well. All I had to do was read each message when I woke up, and it would come true. 

I never knew my grandma - she died before I was born. As such, anything about her took on a wondrous and magical aura. I always cherished anything I could learn about her. I sat in awe and studied this artifact of hers that I now possessed.

I placed the calendar next to my bed and went to sleep. The next morning I anxiously read the day’s message - “A routine task will turn into an adventure”. I got out of bed, my mind churning around what the message could mean.

The day went on as routinely as possible, until my Mom and I stopped at the gas station. As were filling the car up with gas, a friend from school spotted me and waved me down. My friend asked me if I wanted to come over and play after dinner.

This was a deviation from the plan and made me anxious. Normally I would have declined, but I remembered Grandma’s message from this morning – “A routine task will turn into an adventure”. Against everything in my nature, I agreed, and spent the night playing with my friend. 

That night I went to bed, happy and excited about what message Grandma had for me the next morning. 

And so it continued, day in and day out, that I would wake up, read the calendar’s message for that day, and the prediction for that day would come true. The calendar became my most prized possession – an anchor of order in a chaotic world. For me, it truly was a magical relic that Grandma had left behind for me.

I loved the calendar so much, that I soon wanted to share it with my classmates in school. It was in fifth grade that I told them all about the magical calendar, and how it would tell me what was going to happen that day. They were skeptical. “The calendar is from years ago. There’s no way it could tell the future.”

I knew the truth though and was unfazed by their doubts. However, it became much more difficult when my best friend became skeptical. 

“The calendar only has 365 predictions – there’s no way the messages could change every year. When the year’s over, you just flip the calendar around and start over and get the same predictions. If it was truly predicting the future, the sayings would be different every year.” 

This bothered me – the calendar indeed had 365 pre-printed predictions – one for each day of the year. But were the predictions repeating themselves every year? A year is a long time to remember, and I never compared the same day’s prediction from one year to the next. 

I could feel anxiety rising up within me. Was the calendar a dud? Was my Grandma’s gift nothing more than a half-priced bargain calendar?

I devised a plan to prove my friend wrong. I took out a notebook and began transcribing each day’s prediction into my notebook. I also wrote down how the prediction came to pass. Having a log of how each day’s prediction came true gave me confidence in my Grandma’s gift. But I still had a seed of doubt in the back of my mind – the worst part was that I would have to wait a whole year to see if the predictions were repeating themselves.

On the eve of the new year I climbed into bed, anxiously optimistic that the calendar indeed was magical. I tossed and turned, but eventually fell asleep. 

The next morning, on New Year’s Day, I woke up and eagerly compared the calendar’s prediction to the previous year’s prediction stored in my notebook. I held my breath as I scrutinized each word between the calendar and my notebook, seeing if they matched. 

Indeed, the calendar’s prediction for the first day of the year did not match with what I had previously written in my notebook. The calendar had changed! This proved it – the calendar was something more than just a finite set of repeating prediction year after year.

The calendar continued to change its predictions every New Year’s Day. However, I also changed as I got older. My mind became focused on other things – and I would occasionally forget to check the predictions in the morning. 

It wasn’t until after I moved out of my parent’s house and went away to college that I noticed that the calendar stopped changing. This didn't phase me, though, as so much was happening at that time in my life – so many new experiences – and I was okay with that.

I moved from place to place after college, and no matter where I lived, I always kept the calendar next to my bed. I only checked it occasionally. 

The calendar was a precious reminder of the Grandma I never met. And when I would wake up in the morning, regardless of whether I would check the calendar or not, I always joyfully looked forward to what surprises the day may bring.