Finally...

the early moments of becoming a grandparent

Having waited just shy of 70 years before welcoming a grandchild makes the experience all the sweeter. Trusting that I would one day welcome a grandchild, I didn’t spend a great deal of time fretting about a timeline. She/he/they would arrive when the time was right. 

Two years ago, give or take, I awoke from a dream hearing the voice of someone I perceived as a loved one talking to me. As is often the experience of dreams, the visions/voices/messages quickly evaporated. Just shy of losing all memory of the experience, a voice resonated somewhere deep. And upon waking, no joke, I said to myself, “That was my granddaughter talking to me.” She had much to say, which I would not remember. But from that day on, I believed that she was on her way.

Before I knew it, Amy was on the other end of the phone, asking if I could step away from our Fresno friends with whom we were vacationing in Tahoe. 

What??? Step away to talk to you? These were not the words Amy ever used. I ran, fumbling my way into the back bedroom to hear the words I knew were coming. 

Mommy, I’m pregnant. 

Our friends, hearing my squeals and seeing the tears on my smiling face once I returned to the living room, had a guess at what I was going to say, 

Amy’s pregnant. 

Amy’s water broke in the early morning hours of her due date, and Lucia arrived 26 hours later, just shy of sharing her Grandfather Joe’s birthday. 

Two days later, arriving at the hospital accompanied by my son Jordan to meet sweet Lucia Julianne, I revisited a lesson I first learned 37 years ago when Amy was born, and then again when Jordan was born,

It is, in fact, possible to fall in love at first sight. 

In our first moments together, looking down at this tiny human with the longest fingers I’ve seen on a baby (those did not come from our side of the family) I wondered how many lifetimes I have spent with this precious soul. I couldn’t be happier to begin again with endless new possibilities. 

What will we enjoy together this time around?

What experiences will we help each other move through?

And what will we have accomplished together when one of us must once again take leave?

I have a few ideas about Lucia, along with a calm I can’t explain, but given the meaning of her name, which is “light,” I feel hopeful.

More next week.

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