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I am Grandma

I adored my grandmother – her soft lap, her thick stockings and thicker eyeglasses, the old lady shoes and housedresses, her unconditional acceptance and love.  She had no expectations of me (that I knew of) and it would have been impossible to disappoint her.  She was Grandma through and through.  She was what I thought I would always aspire to be if ever I grew old enough – and was blessed -- to be a grandmother, too. 

Well, sort of.  I wanted to love like that.  But I could not, really, ever imagine looking like (much less seeing myself as) Grandma.  Then Sam arrived.  And frankly, I don’t give a darn how – or how old -- I look.  I have been inducted, via his birth, into the netherworld of magic relationships based on the purest of emotions, and I am in love, love, love. 

Because of Sam, I have also joined a confederacy of grandmothers – heretofore unknown and unavailable to me – another powerful sisterhood of acceptance and support, women who have been where I am and know where I am going; women who smile and weep with me when I describe what it means and how I don’t know what it means to gaze upon the face of the next generation; women who understand as I vacillate between feeling – as mother of his father -- totally responsible for Sam’s being here at all and knowing that, actually, I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Only three days old,  Sam is a wonder and a joy.  And I am Grandma.  I hope.

Please share your experiences -- how you learned, and grew, and loved, joys you shared, mistakes you made -- as a grandmother in the Comments below.