I just finished reading This is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity, by Susan Moon. It is an honest, intimate and personal look at a much-neglected subject. In a chapter titled Grandmother Mind, Ms. Moon contemplates all the children born across the world on the same day as her granddaughter, and vows to also think of them as her grandchildren.

How inspiring to be a grandmother-at-large. I can send loving energy around the world, and no child has to be present to win.

But what if I turned that grandmother love on for everyone, regardless of their age?

Two people in my circle consistently rile me. The one annoys me and the other fills me with shame, although it's clear neither is doing anything to me. It’s hard to justify a feeling of victimhood, when a person is standing on the other side of the room innocently talking to someone else. I can trace my feelings back psychologically and follow their connection to the past, but that does nothing to alleviate the churning stomach now.

Memories of my grandmother evoke an image of compassion and patience. She seemed to know that, whatever my transgressions as a child, I was inherently innocent. She loved me through all my difficult emotions, including anger and shame.

I wonder how relationships might change if I thought of others—those two people who rile me, the homeless man on the corner and the driver who cuts me off in traffic—as grandchildren instead of challenges.

I wonder.