Grandparenting is way of being. Samuel was born in 1981 and I was 47, I thought, give me a break! I just got done raising my kids and already I'm going to be a grandparent? I’m much too young! That lasted until the moment I looked into his precious face.
Of course, since it was not my husband's flesh and blood that created this grandchild, he often corrected people when they called Sammy his grandchild. He felt too young too.
That is, until the night she played 'this little piggie' with his toes and wrapped herself around his heart!
We got used to the grand-parenting thing right away, and it is fun - all of thel.
Then, in 1999, Sammmy had Ellen and I became a great-grandparent for the first time. Again, we were too young for this to be happening to us
Last year we drove to Cleveland, Ohio to see my second great-grandchild Ababail Anne.
When Sammy answered the front door, the kids flew into my husband's arms and ignored me... their own flesh and blood. They hung behind their mother’s legs for the longest time before they warmed up to me...gifts or no gifts!
At every opportunity they were on Grandpa's lap, holding his hand or squeezing in to sit beside him in a restaurant. On the first night of our visit, Grandpa sat with his arm around each. He squeezed each one and said, "You’re my friend, aren’t you?"
"I am not your friend, Grampa, I’m your sister" they took turns saying and looking up at him with big blue eyes.
They had just learned that they were sisters Abagail. Now, with somebody else new in the house, Ellen was sister to us too. We tried explaining the grandparents bit, but with so many sets of those it was confusing. She had Great-Grandpa and Grandma Corrie in Scardsle and "Gammy KitKat" in Oakdale, (my daughter) and Grampa Wee Wee (Willy) and Grammy Pat there in the next town and Ryan's parents Great-Grandfather and Grandmother LouEllen in San Francisco and us.
These children would not be at a loss for doting grandparents, for sure.
And after the number Ellen did on Richie, and the amount of times he told the ‘sister’ story to our friends when we got home, I knew, like her mother not even twenty years before, she had wrapped herself around his heartstrings.
Age is of no consequence where the blood rolls thickest. And no, I STILL don't feel like a great-grandmother!!