Happy Mother’s Day to one and all. This post will have to be short since I’m busy being a Nana currently. Nothing can prepare you for the look in your grand daughter’s eyes when she sees you again. It’s not heart warming, it’s heart melting – literally your heart just implodes inside itself. Kaboom, or “TaDa!” as we like to say.
I know I’ll never have to pick dozens of bees out of my son’s clothes again. Or sit in an ice cold skating rink and cheer him on to do ice hockey battle. I’m done sitting on the sidelines for my daughter’s cheerleading at Mini/Mighty/Football games. And I’m finished hosting sleepovers of girls doing their nails while watching Dirty Dancing. Teaching them to ride bikes and drive cars was mostly Bob’s job, but the rest of it – the messy, miraculous ritual, the day-in-and-day-out care, love, feeding, clothing, nursing and management job was the job I signed up for.
And I was just starting to realize that my job was done. That in fact, they wouldn’t really need me for the rest of their lives. Meaning that Bob and I could pat ourselves on the back; after all, we’d raised two, count ‘em two, happy, confident, compassionate and fairly successful kids! Ahem, I meant adults.
But before we could get too comfortable in our new roles as parents of adult children, we became Grandparents. And now I know that all the miraculous love and bliss that babies bring into their new home, it just gets squared when you become the Nana. Because you realize it’s not the end of the world when they bruise their knee, or follow behind you cutting down all the perennials you’ve just finished planting. We take a longer view, we know this thing called childhood doesn’t last that long.
So when the Love Bug just spontaneously snuggles her damp head under my arm while I’m reading her a story about a monkey named George, I melt. Being a Grandmother is the reward for all those sleepless nights and teenage moments of angst. Grandparenting gives us another chance, to love unconditionally.
Watching Little League Baseball last night
Well I’m on my way, I don’t know where I’m going
I’m on my way, I’m taking my time, but I don’t know where
Goodbye to Rosie, the queen of Corona
By Paul Simon, Me and Julio
