Life is sooo strange.

It seems just a few weeks ago that my babies were Kendra's age, and yet now I
am an Oma (grandmother).  

Time really is elastic.  

For weeks before I heard that the baby was on the way, I was sorting, washing,
and repacking baby clothes and thinking about my childrens lives and about how
quickly they had grown.  When I heard I was to be a grandmother, I went back
through the thousands of photos I have of my babies growing up.  

It's funny.  I had focussed for so long on all that I hadn't been able to give
to them, and about the nights they went to bed hungry.  It was so sad that I
had finally found stability in my life just as my youngest child moved away. 
It was too late for Disney Land and expensive toys and the latest clothes. It
was too late for trips and luscious, indulgent meals, and extragances.

I mentioned my sadness to my my kids and they both told me that far from
feeling deprived, they thought of their childhood as a very, very happy time. 
In looking back over the photos, I realized that while their clothes were never
quite warm enough, and food was often scarce and mainly pretty simple, we *did*
have fun a lot of the time... we didn't have toys, but we played together.  It
was cold with no money to pay for heat, so we built a tent out of blankets and
dining room tables and we played inside, to conserve out body heat.  We told
each other stories (very fantastical stories!) about being arctic explorers and
Innuit.  We went to second hand stores and bought fancy clothes for p[ennies
and played dress up, and we were princes and princesses having high tea, and we
drank weak tea and ate broken up cookies in our finery.  We used old paper to
draw picture for each other, and made flower chains from dandelions.

We went for walks, and we chatted with friends. We learned which foods we could
eat from the yard and which ones, though nutritious, were yucky and which were
quite tasty.

And now they have grown up and moved away, and have begun the process of
passing along all we have been together through having children of their own.  

I don't think I realized that it's just as life changing when our children have
children as it is when we have children ourselves.  The kids are young, and I
know more than they can yet about the challenges they will face.  But I know,
too, how immensely satisfying it is to turn hardship into adventures, and
necessities into opportunities.

But I don't know, can't know, what choices they will make, what I taught them
that will have an effect on how they parent and what I taught them that will go
by the wayside.

I never expected to be an "interfering" grandmother, and yet now I understand
how difficult that decision will be to keep, because I care.  Because I know.

I never expected my view of myself and of the world to change as much as it has
since that fateful phone call.  I have again become painfully aware of the
injustice in the world, and the hazards young people face as they become
adults.  I have again become intensely aware of my place in the line that
brought Louis Gasne from Paris to Quebec in 1630 and led through time and psace
to my mother, to myself, to my children, and back to Europe to my grandchild.

All the hopes I had for my children are there, but the sense that I will be
able to make things better for them is missing.  It's not my prerogative to
make a world for this little one to grow up in. And yet she carries the family
traits with her, in a marvelous new blend with those of her mother's family.

Life is astonishing.  Every day, every experience changes us so, if we pay
attention ... 

6 responses total.

get a dog, they're cheaper and they listen better.

<laugh>  There were many days I thought that maybe I'd have been better off
sticking with gerbils ... but now comes the bonus.  Grandbabies have all the
charm of one's own, but you can hand them back when they cry and the bail money
is someone else's problem.  ;)

heh.   yeah...my nephew goes elsewhere when he poops his
britches..."Hey Sis...IT'S MOMMY TIME."

Congratulations!  Which of your kids is the parent?

TJ, whom I don't think most Grexers ever met.  (Corey has more sense, I think,
than to have a child so young...hmmm, 'cept Corey is almost the same age I was
so maybe it's not so young after all ... )

I have recently returned from a 10 day trip to visit my children and
grandchildren, and wanted to comment that grand parenting gets better and
better as the children grow.  We can now do things with both of our grandsons
that, we too, enjoy.  Last time, we went and hit golf balls as far as we could
in a driving range.  We can go to movies together, play miniature golf, and
lots of other activities we all can enjoy.  They seem to love when we come and
greet us with such enthusiasm.  Having them has been an unmitigated joy for
both my husband and I.  And we love bringing them pleasure however we can.

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