On June 24, I became a great-grandmother. I felt so lucky and so blessed that I was able to see the beginning of a new generation in my family. It was a rather strange feeling. It felt like a new beginning in my life and I couldn't stop smiling. As a mother in labor, you pray to see your child born. At that moment when you see your child, you see the next generation but you don't think about that.
You don't think about generations to come, even if you are a genealogist.
And it takes years before you start to think about the possibility of grandchildren. Some moms don't want that day to come. They will be perceived as old. Some can't wait, regardless of their age. And there are ways to get around the problem of being called grandmother. You can make up a name like nana, mawma, and a hundred other things I have heard. But when the fog of birth disappears you are still grandma.
It is crazy but I don't have any friends who object to being called great-grandmother. It is like a badge of honor.
A few days after my great-granddaughter was born I was getting ready to meet up with friends at a local Mexican restaurant. I caught my reflection in the mirror. I sure didn't look like a great grandmother. As I drove down Crissy Road on my way to Loma Lindas I thought about my own great grandmothers. Should I look like them? No way! And then I started thinking about all the differences between all of us.
All of my great grandmothers wore long skirts. The had long hair. And they were all different. One was a pioneer in the Great Black Swamp. Another immigrated from Prussia. Yet another was an abolitionist and had three sons who made it home from the Civil War. The last died young and never got to see her young children live to adulthood, let alone see her own grandchildren.
And here I was off to celebrate with the girls (other grandmothers) at the local Mexican Restaurant. No horse and buggy. No restrictions. No one looking down their noses at us.
If we wanted to we could party like it is 1999. I doubt that Grandma Perkins or Grandma Rochte could have partied like it was 1899. Although from what i have heard Grandma Rochte might have tried. She was a neat lady.
My great grandmothers did not have the right to vote. But my great granddaughter has the right to be President of the United States of America.
End of discussion.
