Elsie just wants Josh, her grandson, to meet someone with whom he can consider settling down. When a young new teacher enrolls at her kindergarten, she thinks that she has hit the jackpot. But when Josh meets Allison, Elsie learns that they already have a connection.
I’m a meddling grandmother. Not in a bad way — I just want my grandson Josh to move along with his life. He’s 27 and spends most of his time at work or gaming.
During weekends, he stays at home, working on something around the house, or gaming.
“You need to get out more, Josh,” I said. “I want you to live your life to the fullest! Don’t you want to meet someone?”
“I get it, Gran,” he would say, pausing his game. “But I’m just not interested in that at the moment. Work is taking up all my time and energy, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”
“You’re not getting any younger,” I said, handing him chips to snack on.
“It’s because you’re surrounded by kids all day, so you just want great-grandchildren,” he laughed.
Josh wasn’t wrong. I was a kindergarten teacher, and I loved every moment of it. But I was done with the life of raising children away from their homes. Now, at 70, I wanted a quiet life of knitting and baking — a soft life, as Josh put it.
I’m leaving my position at the school at the end of the year. And maybe it’s just maternal instinct, but I wanted to know that Josh would be okay and not so alone.
A few months ago, we welcomed a new teacher at the kindergarten, Allison.
She was a few years younger than Josh, and I loved having her around during the day. So, of course, I thought about setting her up with him.
But I knew my grandson — Josh would never agree to an arranged date. He probably wouldn’t even show up.
The next best thing was to invite Allison over for dinner, where Josh would be forced to meet her.
“Alli,” I said to her one day during school. “Would you like to come over for dinner?”
“Yes! Of course, I would, Mrs. Barnard,” she said. “Since moving here, I’ve really missed family dinners. This will be great.”
I arranged for Allison to come over for dinner on a Friday evening. She went on and on about coming early to help with the cooking or bringing things over.
“Please just let me help, Mrs. Barnard,” she pleaded, as she helped me put the toys away one afternoon.
“You can bring dessert,” I told her. “And call me Elsie.”
I loved her.
And I knew that she would complement Josh well.
But nothing on earth could have prepared me for the connection between Josh and Allison.
That evening, as I was setting the table, Josh walked in.
“What’s this about?” he asked, nodding to the table.
“We’re having a new teacher over for dinner, okay?” I said, putting the cutlery in place.
“Sure, do you need me to help you?” he asked.
Allison arrived, her presence a breath of fresh air, carrying a cake with her.
She hugged me at the door and made herself at home — while Josh was still in his bedroom.
And then, the entire evening was turned upside down.
“Allison?” Josh’s voice came from the doorway, a mix of disbelief and an inexplicable hint of recognition.
“Josh?” Allison answered, her eyes wide. “Mrs. Barnard, this is your grandson? Josh?”
Confusion wrapped the room like a thick fog.
“Wait, you two know each other?” I asked, my heart racing at the possibilities of their connection.
“Yeah, Gran,” Josh said, sitting down.
“How?” I pressed on. We were past the niceties; I needed to know more.
“Allison is my sister,” he declared, each word resonating with the weight of a thousand unspoken stories.
The room fell silent.
“Explain, please,” I told Josh.
Josh isn’t my biological grandson. In fact, I had spent years of my life wanting a child, but I struggled with personal relationships. So, when I was 48, I took the plunge and went to an orphanage.
That’s where I met Josh. He was 5 years old and was a survivor of an accident in which his parents had died.
“Elsie,” Mandy, the social worker, said. “He’s a great kid! He’s curious, charming, and polite as ever. He just needs a chance to get out of here and live.”
When I met him, he was a scared little boy who had lost the most important people to him.
“What about the rest of his family?” I asked. “Wouldn’t they come looking?”
“There isn’t anyone else,” Mandy said. “We’ve searched. Which is why he had to be separated from his sister, too. She was adopted three weeks ago.”
“And the family didn’t want to take Josh?” I asked.
“Sadly, no,” Mandy admitted. “They just wanted the youngest child we had, so that they could have as much of her childhood as possible.”
In the end, despite my asking for more information about Josh’s sister, there was just no way such confidential information could be given out.
I adopted Josh as his grandmother because I was already going gray, and I didn’t want anyone to ask him why his mother was so old.
Eventually, on his 15th birthday, I told him the truth about the adoption — but nothing about his sister because I just didn’t have the information.
So, Josh has known the truth — or as much of the truth as possible.
“Tell me,” I pressed on.
“Gran, after you told me the truth about me being adopted, I felt settled. I mean, you had chosen me, after all. But I just felt that there was more to the story, you know?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to interrupt him. But I would choose this boy every single time.
“So, a few months ago, I went back to the orphanage, and I was told about a sister — Allison. And they were able to give me information because we were biological siblings.”
“And then, Josh found me on Facebook,” Allison chimed in. “We’ve been talking for a while. Although, he didn’t tell me the truth at first.”
“Well, I didn’t know if you knew the truth or not,” Josh retorted. “I couldn’t just say that I found your details in an old file at an orphanage.”
“I didn’t think that our first meeting would happen here, in your home,” Allison said.
“I think we need some dinner,” I said, waking up to get the food.
As we sat down at the table, I silently observed Josh and Allison’s reunion. I had absolutely no idea that there was a possibility that they could have known each other, let alone be siblings.
Josh ate quietly, processing his thoughts while he chewed. Allison’s eyes were glazed over — I wondered what she was thinking, and whether she was okay.
“Gran, why did you invite Allison over?” Josh asked, pouring more wine.
“Because I wanted to play matchmaker,” I said honestly.
Allison started giggling, and soon the room echoed with laughter.
The sense of awkwardness that had initially overwhelmed me transformed into a profound joy — I had hoped to bring love into Josh’s life, never imagining it would come in the form of a sister’s bond long severed by fate.
But their roles in each other’s lives were restored.
Later, when Allison took it upon herself to do the dishes, Josh and I stood outside.
“I can’t believe this,” Josh whispered, his voice cracking with emotion as he turned to me.
“I’m as surprised as you are,” I said, looking at the night sky.
“You’ve given me so much,” he said. “And now, you’ve unknowingly brought Allison back. We’ve been talking, but neither of us had the courage to actually meet.”
The rest of the night unfolded with stories of childhood memories lost and found, of heartaches and hope, and the unshakeable bond of family.
As I lay in bed that night, the house quiet once more, I couldn’t help but feel that their meeting was predestined by some other force.
At least now, Allison will be in Josh’s life, in some capacity or another.
Straight Family Man Prefers To Wear Skirts And Heels As He Believes ‘Clothes Have No Gender’
Mark Bryan is a robotics engineer who has been married for 11 years and has a daughter. He identifies as straight and chooses to dress unconventionally. Bryan is an American living in Germany, and he doesn’t believe that fashion has to be gendered. You can find Bryan wearing a skirt and heels to work or out anywhere else he goes on any given day.
Bryan said he doesn’t like how limited men’s choices are in the fashion department, especially when it comes to office attire. Men’s pants only come in a few colors, mostly black, gray, dark blue and the occasional pinstripe, and cuts.
The stylish dresser believes that if women are allowed to wear pants, men should be able to wear skirts and dresses as well. Bryan likes how skirts come in many styles and patterns – and many more colors – unlike men’s clothing.
Bryan prefers to mix traditional gender looks by wearing masculine attire on his top half, like a blazer and tie, and traditionally feminine attire on the bottom half. He will typically wear a pencil skirt and four-inch heels on the bottom.
Wearing high heels is no problem for Bryan. He first learned how to do it when his college girlfriend asked him to wear high heels while dancing with her so that they were on the same level. They continued this for over a year.
Bryan doesn’t let stereotypes or assumptions stop him from dressing in a way that brings him joy. He challenges expectations and does so unapologetically. Keep reading to hear what Bryan has to say about his fashion choices.
Bryan has a very clear idea about how he likes to dress. He told Bored Panda: “To me, clothes have no gender. I prefer skirts to dresses. Dresses don’t allow me to mix the genders. I prefer a ‘masculine’ look above the waist and a non-gendered look below the waist. It’s all about clothes having no gender.”
He continued: “I am old enough to remember that in school, the girls could not wear pants. Pants have now become a non-gendered article of clothing. So why can’t skirts and heels be non-gendered? Besides, men wore heels before women did. Maybe not today’s stiletto-style heels, but men did wear heels before women.”
Bryan is correct about that. High heels can look back on a long history. Although historians and archaeologists cannot date their invention clearly, they have been around at least since the 10th century. And they were not a fashion statement at first. No, the first recorded use of high heels was eminently practical: the Persian cavalry wore boots with heels, called a kalash or galesh, that made it easier for them to keep their feet inside their stirrups. This is, by the way, the same reason why cowboy boots have a small heel as well!
Since owning a horse was a sign of wealth, only well-off men could afford to wear these high-heeled boots. The use of them slowly spread across Europe, and high heels heels became one of the fashion signs of rich noblemen or traders. In fact, following the Great Schism of the Christian Church in the 11th century, even the pope wore high heels.
It wasn’t until several hundred years later that fashion slowly changed. During the 18th century, cultural concerns in Europe came up about the distinction between males and females and talk about what men and women should wear arose. This is the point in time where the belief that fashion is something effeminate and frivolous that “real men” shouldn’t care about hails from. Due to these changing beliefs, men largely abandoned high heels heels, as they were seen as impractical and mere accessories.
Bryan is one of the examples of how high-heels are slowly coming back as an accepted form of footwear for men. Although the engineer champions the option of wearing high-heeled shoes for men, he understands many people will look twice when they see him. He compares his style choices to someone who chooses to dye their hair bright colors. He explained:
“Take a person with bright green hair. Green hair is not normal. You look up and see this person, your mind tells you it’s a person with green hair, you think to yourself, that’s odd or interesting, then you go back to do what you were doing and don’t give it another thought. I believe this is the same when people see me in a skirt and heels.”
Bryan doesn’t have to struggle to find skirts and heels that fit him either. He wears a size 8 in skirts, and with smaller feet for a man, his shoe size in heels is 8.5. If you know a man who is considering trying out wearing heels and skirts too, Bryan suggests starting with a lower heel until you feel more comfortable walking in high heels.
What do you think of Mark Bryan’s style choices? Do you know any men who would try walking in high heels? Let us know, and be sure to send this along to your friends and family.
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