It is true that by small and simple things great things come to pass. Seconds add up to minutes, minutes up to hours, hours up to days, days up to years, and years up to a lifetime, and events that seemed would never arrive really do come. To me life has been about growing up, falling in love, marrying, having a family of my own, raising them and seeing them all married and starting their own families. It is the way I was taught it should be. But no one told me how I would feel when the last child really did fall in love and get married. It is interesting to have great feelings of happiness and gratitude mixed with those of loss. I wondered why I did not experience more of these feelings with the other children, and I have concluded it is because I always had another child at home who needed me. Do not get me wrong; I am very happy and excited for Taylor and Kate. I have no doubts that they are right for each other, and it is wonderful to see how happy Taylor is when he is with Kate. I am just surprised by my feelings of sadness at being at the end of my family-rearing era and life as I have known it for decades will never be the same. SOooo . . . . . what is next in the family category? Why, full-time grand parenting of course! Although I now live across the country I am doing my best to make sure I connect with my grandchildren and be a blessing in their lives. The other day two of my granddaughters deftly reminded me that I am starting to look more and more like a grandma. Kylie refers to my hair being grayish (I give it blonde highlights to try and avoid the gray look.) and Cassie, while sitting on my lap and playing with my arms, lifted one of them up and said, “Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle as she pointed out the loss of muscle tone in my upper arm. I yelled out to Aubrey, “I am officially an old grandma! My arm “muscles” jiggle now!” (I have not quite decided if I am going to do some serious muscle toning exercises or just embrace my grandma-hood, deteriorating body and all.)
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| Anticipation. |
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| The newest Kauffman family. |
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| Kate will make a wonderful mother. |
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| Grandmothering is great! |
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| My sweetheart of 38 years (36 married). |
