I am a grandmother now.
I have no idea how this happened, in terms of time travel. In my mind's eye, I am still a late thirty-something - much like my two daughters, who have gifted us with these wee ones.
But wee ones they are, and we, that Spouse o' Mine and I, behold them as the miracles they are. We see kith and kin in them. I wonder about fractal dimensions and this and that and this and that with their fun and well-being and what-in-the-world- in their normal goings-on.
So much to take in. Parenting as I know it has really been shifted to the third seat back in the Volvo Station Wagon. No more "Hush!" No more "Because I said so!" I have to laugh, but when the whining gets a'goin', I bite my 65-year old tongue (most of the time), and just grimace and bear it. Gentle parenting is an anomaly in my elder world.
Today I was in the car with two of the three grandkids. One was whiney. I thought about singing, as I so often do any time in my day. I sing classical melodies, or silly kids' songs, or old hillbilly songs, hymns, or whatever comes to mind. Such a plethora of options in my elder repertoire.
As I sat in the passenger seat, weighing my songbird options, I had a memory come to mind - one of my sister. She and I would sing anytime, at the drop of the hat. Two part harmony. My earliest memory was at a Bachman family Christmas, when she and I sang a Jingle Bells duet. She chastised me for "jazzing it up." I smile at that. After she and I became mothers, we would routinely sing to our five kids. It's what one did.
So today, I was thinking of my sweet sister Barb, and our fun years of mothering our young kiddos together.
Wowza. That was twenty years ago, us two. She passed this week, twenty years ago...
She and I always laughed that we would live near each other, not unlike our great aunties Rachel & Edna. And Lois and Alpha.
But here I am, this week, embracing my third generation, and thinking of her generation, at a distance, and imagining. Just imagining...
