05/21/2025
In 2012 I had a cool, hipster co-worker from Brooklyn walk into my office. I didn't know her well. However, that day she opened up and shared she'd recently broken up with her boyfriend and was hurting.
As I listened to her, a thought came to my mind, "have her call your Grandma Eileen". The co-worker had never meet my grandma, who lived in the Seattle-area, but I wrote down her landline number and passed it to her. She said, "Mike, that's so weird. You want me to call your grandma?"
However, that weekend she was in such a vulnerable state that she called her. They spoke for hours. On Monday, she came back into my office looking entirely different. She said, "I just feel lifted. Grandma Eileen made me feel like it's going to be ok". That was the first of many weekend calls between the two of them.
I'll never forgot that experience and others like that with my grandma. She was just one of those nonjudgemental, present grandmas who had more love to give then my immediately family even had capacity. Grandma Eileen, like a grandma you may know, is for everyone. We just need them.
We could be experiencing a relationship issue, job loss, financial stress, lack of direction, loneliness, newly married, excited about being a new parent, wrestling with forgiveness or just feeling apathetic, and a disarming grandma is just what you need.
They've lived through world wars, don't care about social media, and have mastered the art of listening and asking questions. They just care about you and who you really are.
Not all grandmas as the same. Some lecture, some judge. But I was lucky, and it almost felt like a responsibility to share Grandma Eileen with as many as I could.
So, I bought a lemonade stand off Etsy and put it out on a NYC street corner with a chair, headphones and a laptop. I just knew if anyone stopped and chatted with Grandma Eileen (albeit virtual), they would have a similar experience as my co-worker. And it worked.
From 2012 until she passed away in 2018, Grandma Eileen met the world. Every week we went out to a different street, park or block and she met thousands.
It didn't matter if you were a Columbia student trying to figure out your major, or a tourist trying to navigate being a new parent, Grandma Eileen was a 5-10 minute respite from the world.
After she passed at the age of 102, I retired the Grandma Stand.
But in early 2024, I was walking in Central Park and was thinking about all my friends who seemed to be drowning in stress because of world events, family rupture or politics.
It was time to bring back the Grandma Stand.
I purchased a new lemonade stand, painted it Grandma Eileen's favorite color purple, and invited a kind grandma from my building to participate.
Today, there are 15 NYC-based grandmas who rotate each week at different locations along with a new discussion prompts (posted on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grandmastand), and you can't help but leave feeling lifted.
