“If you want to civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.” -Victor Hugo
SO, one moment you’re just a mother, and before you can blink and think you can relax and take it easy, having escaped the ties of children, their troubles and their demands, you feel a little tug.
In the next moment, you’re all-wise and prehistoric, where everything has started to sag and double, past that certain age, and you’re ready for the scrap yard. Then the grandchildren came along, handing back your youth in a fancy box. You’re starting all over again and find yourself bound once more by the needs of your grandchildren and their love.
I thought I had forgotten to hold a baby, but my arms remembered as I gazed into the sweet, innocent face. Just above the size of a hug, grasping tiny soft hands, so small and warm, like a kitten in the shelter of your clasp. Those gasps of astonishment and shrieks of pleasure, sighs of delight, lost a long time ago when my four girls grew wise and worldly. They are suddenly back to you, by your grandchildren, in what seems to be the same small hands that clutched you, dragging you from one excitement to another.
Rocking a tiny bundle of joy who is a loving extension of you is called midlife ecstasy. Just like that, it is the evidence of love in its most uncomplicated and trustworthy state blush-inducing love affair.
The moment a baby is born, a grandmother is born too. Suddenly, by no act of yours, you’ve become biologically related to a human being. It really seems quite crazy that your baby should be sitting with a baby of her own on her lap, like a sort of bonus.
And you realize, all that joy of becoming a mother was simply a prelude to the elation of becoming a grandmother.
While there, I stood one sweet Sunday, cradling in my arms seven pounds, 15 ounces baby girl named Eliana Milaina, aged 26 hours and four minutes, my new granddaughter. She was wrapped so tightly so nothing else in this world could get at her.
How I prayed she could stay protected that way. Where there is love, there is usually a little granddaughter nearby. She is independence parading around in her mother’s shoes and slippers and alluring in a bandana, dark glasses and yards of beads, who relishes in turning my daily routine topsy turvy with her ardor and curiosity. She is the biggest thrill, whose laughter is like a concert of little bells, shattering the morning sun, a present joy a promise of the future.
Through the years, I’ve learned that there are 147 different ways to hold a baby, all of them right. Used to asking the questions by my trade, I found myself groping for words, through the years when confronted by puerile questions that defied logic or whose answers required other questions: Why is God not married? Did Jesus shave or did he go to a barbershop? Is the sun hot? Do flowers go to sleep? Why is the sky blue? Does the Easter bunny lay eggs? Which cow gives chocolate milk? How do birds fly? She is amusing and enchanting whether 3-6 or 13, now even older, she has the power to raise spirits when it is how, she can expand my universe, in the twinkle of her eye.
Together we learned names of plants, every tree, every bird, and insect and oddities. We drew cats and dogs and fathers and mothers and flowers. Her acts of kindness were what my mother taught me. The eldest had become a close confidante and best friend, and like grown-ups, she has started asking questions that can be answered.
But a grandson is a pint-sized bolt of lightning with such skinny eyes, who has her wrapped around his fingers a bewitching creature sprinkled with stardust, heaven-sent bathed in moonglow. He is purity in dirty sneakers, chivalry on a carousel horse.
A quick study in perpetual motion, a magnificent little tyrant I call “Principito,” the captor who holds the key to her grandmother’s heart. When I take him for a stroll, he stops to talk to a dog or a cat and to look at butterflies. When I am away, his mother lets him breathe on the phone, and in a totally unexpected language, he is able to say he loves me. This New Year’s Day, he turned 16, in a blast of a birthday party where he gives me a chance to sing, play and dance.
So what is grandmothering all about? It may feel like a second chance, but it is not a second chance to get parenting right. Rather, it is another chance to love and nurture a child, a relationship between one heart and another love that kind that flows through connected spirits.
The years will go by and my grandchildren may grow, even older. I will no longer be in demand to babysit, read fairy tales, ride the merry go round, and play their piano favorite pieces. Heavens how I dread that day! But if I am lucky there will be another time, another place and other children.
For someday, I’ll be a great grandmother!
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E-mail Mylah at [email protected].
