Eleven years ago, I was looking forward to the imminent start of one of life's exciting transitions - becoming a grandparent. Of course, at the time, I didn't really understand what that meant for my life, because I had never been one, and like most life changes, you don't really understand it until you go through it.
I didn't have grandparents. They all died when I was very young or before I was born, so I never had the grandparent experience myself. So I didn't know what it was like to have a grandparent. I did know from some of my cousins that I missed out on something special. But I wasn't really clear on what, exactly, that experience was. Because I didn't really see myself in the role that they described their grandmother filling - a woman always in the kitchen cooking and baking and making treats and loving her family by feeding everyone. That just isn't my style. So what was my style of grandmother going to be?
Lets just say I spiraled from there. What kind of grandmother doesn't bake? Was I going to be any kind of grandmother? What do I know about grandmothering, anyway? I barely know about kids, I'm not great with kids.... Spiral, spiral.... (I'm just gonna be honest here. I don't handle change all that well. Even good change. It takes me a hot minute to get with the program, but I do eventually get there.)
