Grandparenting 101

 Sometimes the obvious is just not that obvious to me, as I have realized over the last few days.  My grandsons have their birthdays two days apart at the end of April, so I always spend time thinking about them this time of year, reviewing the past year and everything that we have done together and experienced.  And I also spend time thinking about my role in their lives, and what I bring to the table as a grandmother.

But this year, we laid to rest my aunt at age 100, as the boys turned seven and nine, and the juxtaposition of those two events has made me understand this relationship in a whole new way.

My mother's hand....

 I recently had the opportunity to observe, up close, my mother's hand as she lay still and quiet. I wondered what other people saw, when they looked at that hand. It is an elderly hand, one that has seen a lot of hard use over the 97 years it has served her. It is fragile, worn, chapped, swollen, and a little weary from all the work that has been accomplished, and it is ready to have some well deserved rest from its labors, just as my mother is.

But I don't see any of that as I gaze at her today. Instead, here is what I see when I look at my mother's hand.

Slán abhaile.

 I have been thinking about Sinead O'Connor quite a lot the last couple of days, as many people no doubt have.  Full disclosure:  I was not her biggest music fan, for a variety of reasons.  And yet... I was a true fan of her, Sinead, the person, and it is that which I have been thinking about.

Of course, I recognized she had the voice of an angel.  Haunting, emotional, tearing you this way and that.  She had a power like very few ever have to move the listener.  She did not need autotune and lots of special effects to do it.  Her voice, alone, was enough.  Sometimes it was too much, really.  She was almost too real to bear.

On being a grandmother....

 Every year at this time, I contemplate what it means to me to be a grandmother.  My two grandsons have their birthdays two days apart, and it always shocks me, each year, how quickly the years are flying by.  This year it is even more so, as they are both in school and they are so clearly growing up.  Their faces are no longer the faces of babies or toddlers - they are boys, growing and thinking and in possession of their own personalities and thoughts and plans.

I did not grow up with grandparents.  I always knew I was missing out on something, because my friends would talk about how great it was to go to their grandparents' homes, but mine all died before I was born, or when I was so young I don't remember them at all.  I didn't really spend time with friends at their grandparents' homes, either.  The only real example I had was my own mother as a grandparent to my kids, and while she did so much right, I thought about ways I would do it differently, also.  

So when I was approaching grandparenting myself, I felt like I finally had a clean slate to make the role my own.  I don't have to live up to anyone else's memory.  I don't have to follow anyone else's example.  I don't have guidelines or expectations to meet.  I get to be the grandparent I want to be, just the way I want to do it, and no one else is involved except the kids, who don't know any better.  Perfect!  What freedom!

The Worth of a Man

 I have been thinking about my dad a lot lately, especially this month.  He would have been 100 years old on January 4, and as of today, he has been gone 50 years, the same amount of time that he lived in this world.  It is sort of a weird milestone, one that most people don't have to ponder, and it has caused me to think about my dad maybe more than I normally would.

I wonder what he would think of this world of ours, if he could come back today and see it.  When he left us, we were in the midst of wrapping up the Vietnam War (that was the day before the peace accords were signed,) the Watergate hearings were in the news, Richard Nixon (remember him? Shady presidents are not a new thing) was inaugurated for the second time but already on shaking ground, and we were in the midst of the early 70's with free love, drugs and rock and roll.  I wonder what would he make of computers and a cell phone in every hand, big screen televisions, video games and the much fancier cars and trucks we drive?  And what about all the other changes in the lives of the people he loved the most?