My mantra is attitude and gratitude. Attitude for me (I’m 77 years old) is a bit of a shape shifter. It’s elusive and not always around and available. I have to work hard mentally and spiritually to rein it in.

My dog Mufasa has plenty of attitude for both of us. He’s an alpha male but in a sweet way. He has his daily routine especially around meal times and walk times and he lets me know exactly when those times are. I’m okay with his attitude most of the time because he gives me so much love and companionship and besides he’s 15 years old, disarmingly handsome and spunky.

Gratitude I have to qualify. Pre Covid-19 I was gratefully involved and entwined with my grandkids, Henry and Lucia, who live next door to me. Henry is 11 and Lucia almost nine years old.

Pre Covid-19 I was the go-to helper when there were teacher conferences days, sick days, or parent overload days when a parent couldn’t clone him or herself to be at two places at the same time.

Pre Covid-19 I had the privilege and the honor of being with my grandchildren for a full day, just the three of us, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. while their parents were at work. We played board games and built forts with couches for framework and enough sheets to equal a sultan’s palace in the Kalahari Desert.

Other times I was the chauffeur, collecting Lucia at the bus stop who turned the backseat of my car into a prima ballerina dressing room. One memorable winter afternoon Henry and Lucia and I went to Lucy Vincent Beach where we found five or six people watching a seal stranded in the phragmites of Chilmark Pond. How she got herself stranded I’ve no idea. But there she was, this harbor seal, arduously struggling and determined to get back into the ocean. We watched and cheered for an hour until and at last she succeeded.

Soccer games, tennis lessons, music recitals, dance performances, Uncle Seth’s pond, these journeys together are now like old photos from another time, another life.

I still do all the things I love. Cooking, baking, gardening indoors and outside, growing herbs and flowers from seed. But I am 77 years old and at risk. My daughter shops for me and I am grateful. But I can no longer be the go-to helper for my grandchilren. Thankfully, because they live next door, I can hear them and see them every day in their backyard.

I call out hello and Henry yells to me, “Look what I can do.” He jumps on the trampoline and performs a magnificent backflip. Then Lucia comes out of the house and does a backflip on the trampoline, too.

“I am so impressed,” I call out. “You are both amazing.”

Grandparents and grandchildren are forever and I am so grateful.

Helene Barr lives in West Tisbury.