I get it. Usually sleep deprivation is annoying, if not physically draining. Seniors and insomnia go together like counting and sheep. I’m fortunate, at least for now. Slumber typically comes easily and lasts through the night.

But I’m not immune. 

Several months ago, I woke up at 4 a.m. There was no crazy amount of caffeine consumption the day before. I had no idea why I wasn’t still in dreamland. 

I tried to will myself back to sleep without success. After a half hour, I picked up my phone to do my beloved daily Wordle. I wasn’t too deep into the green and gold squares when I noticed my 6-year-old granddaughter was on Facebook Messenger. 

“Have a good day at school! I love you!”

I tapped. 

She messaged back, “IT’S LITERALLY 4:45 THERE. YOU CRAZY?” (Punctuation mine.) It’s two hours later where she lives—a reasonable time for a schoolgirl to be up on a Wednesday.

“I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep,” I wrote. 

“IMPOSABLE!” she typed phonetically.

Then she video called, and we spent the morning together before she left for school. 

She walked over to her dad, who was crashed on the couch.

“You can keep sleeping, Dad. I’ll get myself ready,” she whispered to him. No parental argument there!

After a fashion show involving tops in every hue of her gel pen collection held against her PJs, we chose her outfit of the day, settling on a pink long-sleeved shirt that urged, “Be Cool, Be Kind, Be You.”

She headed to the kitchen, where she poured her cereal, returning the milk to the fridge. Balancing her breakfast, she walked to the table. She had three bites before she spilled it. She dutifully cleaned it up, then refilled her bowl, chattering as she ate about the day ahead.

Then she brushed her teeth and hair, gathering her wheat-colored strands into a ponytail and securing it with a scrunchie, “because there’s P.E. today.”

She started to pack her purple unicorn lunchbox with the usual assortment: sandwich, fruit, broccoli and carrots and “a little bit of chocolate”—but quickly reconsidered. 

“I always wish I didn’t take my lunch when there’s pizza at school,” she admitted. Lunch-packer’s remorse is real.

She unzipped her backpack and slipped in a laptop from Virtual School. By that time Dad was up, keys in hand, hurrying her along. 

“I’m so glad I got to see your before-school routine,” I told her, before hanging up. “That way next time I’m out there, I’ll know what you need to do.”

“And you can remind me if I forget anything,” she said.

“And you can remind ME of things too.”

Those of us who grandparent from a distance cherish even the smallest connection points. Getting a peek into her early morning first-grade world for the first time was a revelation. She’s a self-sufficient kiddo.

I thought of her arriving at school 1,330 miles away, hanging up her coat, greeting her friends, saying the Pledge. 

I’d visited just a couple weeks earlier, but she was on mid-winter break and any semblance of routine went out the window. She stayed in the hotel with me so we could swim every spare second. Those special visits are golden.

But I miss the mundane moments, the everyday experiences, being so far away. I felt unexpected gratitude for insomnia—and technology—that let me tag along with this little girl, inching toward independence already at 6.

She has a Michigan mitten-shaped piece of my heart.

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