Can You Stand It?

( I know, right? This pic should be a stock photo that you have to pay to use...but this is my grandson and his model-handsome father. My daughter took this pic with a Nikon - don't have the numbers on the stop-down or the shutter speed or ISO...)


For those of you who are twenty-something, and having a baby isn't even on your radar...get busy. You want to get to my season of life as soon as possible. Children are wonderful...yet grandchildren are heart-enlargingly and alarmingly precious. You love your children with your whole heart.

You love your grandchildren with your whole, enlarged heart.

Trust me - by the time you've done the years of livin' I've done, raising four of your own, personally seeing them through absolutely each and every stage of their young lives, joyful and painful - your heart will be stretched even larger than your womb. Your womb returns to normal (or a semblance of it) but your heart? It never goes back. It never recovers. It was meant to be enlarged.

Just in time for the next generation to tumble into your heart-space and fill it with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

To all who are, and ever will be grandmothers - I congratulate you with the largest bouquet of whatever flower is your very favorite. Most women either are, or will be mothers someday. Therefore, most women are, or will be grandmothers one day. I hope you begin to look forward to grandchildren the day your first child is born. I did. I can't explain it, but I did. I have lived to hold and love grand-ones, by holding and loving their parents, and teaching them as well as I knew how. Somehow, I knew every thing I'd sacrificed would be worth it if my grandchildren could be well loved.

And when your enlarged heart holds that very first grandchild for the very first time, and that big, womanly, motherly heart of yours begins to wring itself out, raining down torrents of love through your happy tears -

Remember me. Remember I told you that it would be all this, and more.

Come here, always, and leave inspired to live your legacy one day at a time, whether you are twenty-five, or fifty-two. The day of your crowning glory will come...those grandbabies will come. The days are long, but the years are startlingly short.

1 comment:

MrsWendy said...

Love this! Everything you said, about the delightful anticipation of the 'glory years', is so true! I can't wait to be a Grandma one day!! It is a pure joy to get to share this season of life with you, to see you rejoice in the next generation is beautiful my friend! Simply beautiful! Congratulations again!