Grandchildren

When I was re-diagnosed last spring, I picked up the phone and called my spouse.  "Well, I guess I'm not gonna meet my grandchildren," I said.

I think that I spent most of my younger life waiting to be a mom, and a good chunk of the 2010s waiting to be a grandmother.  The same way that little kids have their imagined kids' names all picked out, I spend time wondering what I will be called - Grandma? Savta? G-Dukes?  I imagine the games that we will play, the nicknames that I will give them, the pudgy knees and tummies that I will tickle, the countless silly jokes and songs that we will share.

Since that phone call last year, I've moved beyond the worry that I only have an outrageously short time to live.  And, in fact, outrageously short could, for some, be pretty damn long to others, and vice versa.

But still, this morning I found myself once again considering the possibility that I won't be here when that next generation arrives.  And it dawned on me that that will be OK.  I have loved my children fiercely.  And they are perfectly well-equiped to play and tickle and joke and sing.  And their children will be adored as fiercely and completely as I would have adored them myself.