Tag: grandchildren

The Full Tide of Grandparenthood

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We walked downhill
to the beach, her hand in mine,
small step after small step.
She said Hi to the doggie on the leash,
Hi Mommy to a woman passing
on the street, Hi Daddy to a bearded man.
On the sand, she stared transfixed
at the water, the slight waves,
the tide not yet pulling out.
She looked up toward a flap of wings.
Bird, I said, pointing at the seagull,
and she mimicked, Bird,
then turned her gaze back
to the waves’ slow slapping.
Later I sat, looking at trees below me,
a hint of haze burning off the far bay,
the world busy working and sailing,
waking, while I sat waiting as Evie napped
that quiet Maine morning,
the full tide of grandmotherhood
lapping my shore.
~Laura Foley, “Full Tide” from It’s This

They each carried a balloon from a special event for kids and their families.

It had been a morning of our family being together, just because. Being a grandparent needs no other reason other than “just because.”

Big sister was saying how she planned to take her balloon to school on Monday to show her friends. She was enjoying the balloon’s bobbing and weaving in the air … until suddenly it popped, causing her to jump and then she had nothing left but tatters in her hand.

Her face crumpled and the tears began to flow.

Little brother gripped his balloon more tightly, looking at his sister’s tears and worrying the same thing might happen to his balloon. His face contorted, ready to cry right along with her. And then there was a moment of clarity and insight in his eyes.

He handed his balloon to her. He said, “here, you can have mine.”

Though he was clearly sad at the thought of having no balloon himself, his eyes were shining with proud tears.

He had discovered what it meant to sacrifice, to comfort and care for someone he loved.

She was speechless. She held his balloon gently, struggling to know how to respond. If it was even possible, she loved him so much more in that moment.

So their parents said to her brother, “we think that gift deserves stopping for a hot chocolate on the way home.”

Big sister looked at her parents, looked again at her little brother, and handed the balloon back to him, saying “why don’t we share?”

Hot chocolate makes all things wonderful and cozy and better, when shared.

Especially for weeping, laughing, full-to-the-brim-with-love grandparents.

Forty-Five Years Ago Today

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The meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words.
We cannot join ourselves to one another without giving our word. And this must be an unconditional giving,
for in joining ourselves to one another
we join ourselves to the unknown.
~Wendell Berry from “Poetry and Marriage” in Standing By Words

Our vows to one another forty-five years ago today:

Before God and this gathering, I vow from my heart and spirit that I will be your wife/husband for as long as we both shall live.

I will love you with faithfulness, knowing its importance in sustaining us through good times and bad.

I will love you with respect, serving your greatest good and supporting your continued growth.

I will love you with compassion, knowing the strength and power of forgiveness.

I will love you with hope, remembering our shared belief in the grace of God and His guidance of our marriage.

“And at home, by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be–and whenever I look up, there will be you.”

(our wedding vows for our September 19, 1981 wedding at First Seattle Christian Reformed Church — the last line adapted from Thomas Hardy’s  “Far From the Madding Crowd”)

Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.

We enter, willing to die,
into the commonwealth of its joy.
~Wendell Berry from “A Country of Marriage”

…Marriage… joins two living souls as closely as, in this world, they can be joined. This joining of two who know, love, and trust one another brings them in the same breath into the freedom of sexual consent and into the fullest earthly realization of the image of God. From their joining, other living souls come into being, and with them great responsibilities that are unending, fearful, and joyful. The marriage of two lovers joins them to one another, to forebears, to descendants, to the community, to heaven and earth. It is the fundamental connection without which nothing holds, and trust is its necessity.
~Wendell Berry from Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community

We married forty-five years ago today in our Seattle church with Pastor Peter Holwerda officiating, with a small group of family and friends as witnesses.

It was a wedding of two frugal people with little to spend – I sewed my dress and Dan’s shirt from muslin, we grew our own flowers, our families helped potluck the lunch afterward and our tiered carrot cake was made by a friend.

Yet our vows to one another were not frugal and held nothing back. They were extravagant and comprehensive, coming from our hearts and spirits. The music we asked our amazing organist to play (versions below) inspired us by its simplicity and complexity – very much like the families that raised us and the God we worship.

Our vows have taken us from the city to the countryside, to the raising and rejoicing in three amazing children and now soon to be seven grandchildren. We served more than forty years as a public-employed attorney and physician. We have laid down those responsibilities, and picked up the tools of farm and garden along with church and community service for as long as we are able.

We treasure each day of living together in faithfulness, respect, compassion and hope – knowing that how we love and find joy in one another mirrors how God loves and revels in His people.

We pray for many more days to fill us with what endures.

I want to remember us this way—
late September sun streaming through
the window, bread loaves and golden
bunches of grapes on the table,
spoonfuls of hot soup rising
to our lips, filling us
with what endures.
~Peter Pereira from “A Pot of Red Lentils”

Here are versions of the organ music we selected for prelude, processional, recessional and postlude

Just An Ordinary Life

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No doubt she’s disappointed.

Such a disgrace I turned out to be.

Not a policy-maker
Or tech-savvy entrepreneur.
Nothing of note.

I gave birth three times
and sent three
tall, kind people 
into the world

I offered words of consolation
I planted sunflowers
I listened

Elected official?
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist?
Cutting-edge thought-leader?
MD, PhD, CEO?
Oscar, Emmy, Tony? 
Nobel? 
Anything?

I closed my mother’s eyes
when she died
and again, my father’s

I made no fortune
no headlines
nothing went viral

I sang and danced
for no one

I remembered
I noticed
I breathed

Just an ordinary life
filled with extraordinary love.

How disappointing.
~Mary Poindexter McLaughlin “Alma Mater”

Parents can hold unreasonable expectations of success for their children; they tend to reflect their own deficiencies or failures.
After all, we want our kids to make the world a better place
than it was for us.

Yet no academic degree, no bank account, no notoriety or award
can match living an ordinary life filled with extraordinary love.

And yes, I am disappointed in myself – not because of the unmet expectations of my parents – I checked off all the boxes they hoped I would achieve in my younger years, but I couldn’t match the extraordinary love they showed me.

The older me tended to withhold myself emotionally from them as they grew frailer, fearing their weaknesses would someday become my own.

I could have been more compassionate in their final years, rather than taking on the more professional role of the doctor-daughter – physically present but too distracted and stretched with competing responsibilities.

That is something I cannot undo now except to pray for forgiveness for how my own inner struggles made those years harder than they needed to be.

My husband and I birthed three tall kind people who we love and have sent into the world. I pray for them what I wish I had understood when I was sent into the world by my parents: living their ordinary life of extraordinary love is more important than anything else they set out to do.

I rejoice as I see them foster such love for their spouses and their children and their communities: remembering, noticing and breathing life into each new day.

Seeing that as the years go by, I keep planting my sunflowers, slowly letting go of my own disappointment in myself.

Cut and Tumble, Sickness and Weeping

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God keep my jewel this day from danger;
From tinker and pooka and bad-hearted stranger.
From harm of the water, from hurt of the fire.
From the horns of the cows going home to the byre.
From the sight of the fairies that maybe might change her.
From teasing the ass when he’s tied to the manger.
From stones that would bruise her, from thorns of the briar.
From evil red berries that wake her desire.
From hunting the gander and vexing the goat.
From the depths o’ sea water by Danny’s old boat.
From cut and from tumble, from sickness and weeping;
May God have my jewel this day in his keeping.
~Winifred Lett (1882-1973) “Prayer for a Child“

photo by Nate Gibson

I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.
~C.S. Lewis

I want to make a case for the Lighthouse Parent, a term that the pediatrician Kenneth Ginsburg and others have used. A Lighthouse Parent stands as a steady, reliable guide, providing safety and clarity without controlling every aspect of their child’s journey. 

Like a lighthouse that helps sailors avoid crashing into rocks, Lighthouse Parents provide firm boundaries and emotional support while allowing their children the freedom to navigate their own challenges. They demonstrate that they trust their kids to handle difficult situations independently. The key is learning when to step back and let them find their own way.
~Russell Shaw from “Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids”

celebrating a long-awaited pregnancy – 1985

This “prayer for a child” has hung on the wall in our home for four decades, purchased when I was pregnant with our first of three children.

The drawing of the praying mother watching her toddler leave the safety of the home to explore the wide world addressed my worries as a new mama. I would glance at it daily, knowing the world is full of peril; it would remind me of God’s care for our family through every scary thing, real or imagined.

It helped me smile at a few of my irrational fears. Tinkers and pookas and fairies were unlikely to find our children in our rural landscape but at times the world seems full of “black-hearted strangers” and other threats, known and unknown.

Decades later, I continue to pray for our grown children and their God-given spouses, and for six adventuresome grandchildren.

I pray because I can’t not pray, and because I’m helpless without the care and compassion of our sovereign God for each of us, especially when we are brand new, completely dependent and helpless. He is a true “lighthouse” in our lives,

May I be changed by my prayers, molded into a “grand” mother and a light for our half dozen cherished grandchildren, each a jewel in His keeping.

Leaning Lest We Fall

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Today we both fell.

Eventually balance moves
out of us into the world;
it’s the pull of rabbits
grazing on the lawn
as we talk, the slow talk
of where and when,
determining what
and who we will become
as we age.

We admire the new plants
and the rings of mulch you made,
we praise the rabbits eating
the weeds’ sweet yellow flowers.

Behind our words the days
serve each other as mother,
father, cook, builder, and fixer;
these float like the clouds
beyond the trees.

It is a simple life, now,
children grown, our living made
and saved, our years our own,
husband and wife,

but in our daily stride, the one
that rises with the sun,
the chosen pride,
we lean on our other selves,
lest we fall
into a consuming fire
and lose it all.
~Richard Maxson, “Otherwise” from  Searching for Arkansas

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
~e.e. cummings “i carry your heart with me”

May the sun bring you new energy by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away your worries,
May the breeze blow new strength into your being.

May you walk gently through the world,
And know it’s beauty all the days of your life.
~Apache Blessing

Our days are slower now, less rushed, more reading and writing, walking and pondering, taking it all in and wondering what comes next.

I am so grateful not to hurry to work every day, planning how I should parcel out each moment when my energy and strength is waning.

Should I stay busy cooking, cleaning, sorting, giving away, simplifying our possessions so our children someday won’t have to?
Might our grandchildren tire of my attention? Or should I find ways to be of service off the farm to feel worthy of each new day, each new breath?

This time of life is a gift of grace, waking most days with no agenda and few appointments. What comes next remains uncertain, as it always has been. In my busyness, I simply didn’t pay enough attention before.

So I lean lest I fall.
I notice beauty and write about it.
I carry as many hearts as I can hold.
I keep breathing lest I forget how.

When Cousins Come to Visit…

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The cousins are coming!
Cousins, cousins. Here come the boys.
Bedlam, mayhem, noise, noise, noise.
Blow up the air mattresses, hide the breakable toys.
Cousins, cousins. Here come the boys.
~John Forster and Tom Chapin “Cousins”

photo of a windy day — photo by Danyale Tamminga
photo of a windy day — photo by Nate Lovegren

When I was growing up, I got to see my cousins maybe once a year but never lived near extended family. It was always an exciting day when the cousins were coming for a visit, or we went to see them. Now as adults, I have sadly lost touch with several of them.

I’m particularly envious of the close relationships between ten cousins growing up on the same farm just down the road from us- essentially they live interchangeably between one house or the other. What a great way to grow up, with two families who will take you in whenever you want a change in scenery or siblings. If you are fighting with a brother or sister, you can hopefully find compatible cousins a few hundred yards away.

Now we have six grandchildren living far from one another. This week they are able to play altogether in the same room in our ordinarily quiet and boring home —-at times it is mayhem and noise noise noise, but wonderful happy giggles and games abound.

It is a perfect time to treasure these family ties between our grandchildren creating as much bedlam and mayhem as possible!

What to Say Next

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I’ve placed her favorites—
fresh raspberries, string cheese,
a glass of milk in the giraffe cup—
on her highchair tray.

As she munches away,
swinging her short legs,
she asks thoughtfully,
Grandma, are you
pooping?

I continue my bite of oatmeal,
take a sip of coffee,
respond—No darling.
How about you?

She isn’t either—
as we both wonder
what to say next.
~Laura Foley “Breakfast Conversation” from It’s This

I heard an old man speak once,
someone who had been sober for fifty years,
a very prominent doctor.
He said that he’d finally figured out a few years ago
that his profound sense of control,
in the world and over his life,
is another addiction and a total illusion.
He said that when he sees little kids sitting in the back seat of cars,
in those car seats that have steering wheels,
with grim expressions of concentration on their faces,
clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car
to do whatever it is doing,
he thinks of himself
and his relationship with God:
God who drives along silently,
gently amused,
in the real driver’s seat.
~Anne Lamott from Operating Instructions

The conversations I have with my grandchildren
are the most unexpected and creative I have with anyone.

They lead, and I follow.
Just to see where they are going to take me next.

They are curious what I think about things.
And I want to know what they’ll say and do next,
today and in the decades to come.

All the while, God, always in control, smiles at all He has made…

AI image created for this post

The Heart Remembers…

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Everything remembers something. The rock, its fiery bed,
cooling and fissuring into cracked pieces, the rub
of watery fingers along its edge.

The cloud remembers being elephant, camel, giraffe,
remembers being a veil over the face of the sun,
gathering itself together for the fall.

The turtle remembers the sea, sliding over and under
its belly, remembers legs like wings, escaping down
the sand under the beaks of savage birds.

The tree remembers the story of each ring, the years
of drought, the floods, the way things came
walking slowly towards it long ago.

And the skin remembers its scars, and the bone aches
where it was broken. The feet remember the dance,
and the arms remember lifting up the child.

The heart remembers everything it loved and gave away,
everything it lost and found again, and everyone
it loved, the heart cannot forget.
~Joyce Sutphen “What the Heart Cannot Forget” from Coming Back to the Body

The main thing is this–
when you get up in the morning
you must take your heart in your two hands.
You must do this every morning.
Then talk softly to your heart, don’t yell.
Say anything but be respectful.
Say–maybe say, Heart, little heart,
beat softly but never forget your job, the blood.
You can whisper also, Remember, remember.
~Grace Paley from “The Art of Growing Older” in  Just As I Thought

Approaching seventy, she learns to live,
at last. She realizes she has not
accomplished half of what she struggled for,
that she surrendered too many battles
and seldom celebrated those she won.
Approaching seventy, she learns to live
without ambition: a calm lake face, not
a train bound for success and glory. For
the first time, she relaxes her hands on the
controls, leans back to watch the coming end.
Asked, she’d tell you her life is made out of
the things she didn’t do, as much as the
things she did do. Did she sing a love song?
Approaching seventy, she learns to live
without wanting much more than the light in
the catbird window seat where, watching the
voracious fist-sized tweets, she hums along.
~Marilyn Nelson “Bird Feeder”

I’ve relaxed my grip on the controls on the runaway train of ambition. This is a change for someone driven for decades to succeed in various professional and personal roles.

Who I am is defined by what I haven’t gotten done and what I managed to do. And now, at seventy, I hope I still have some time to explore some of those things I left undone.

I want to remember those who I wish were still here, their time over.

Reflecting to my grandchildren the calm I feel.
Holding my own heart gently and treasuring theirs.
Humming as I go.
Just sitting when I wish to.
Watching out the window.
Loving up those still around me.

My heart remembers. It won’t forget. It is sweet to still have some time.

AI image created for this post

That Point of Light

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Push on it again,
that point of light.

What do you think
light is?

What is anything?

§

If you aren’t telling kids
how to live

in a world
you can’t imagine,

what are you doing?

Telling God
about fall’s
claret-colored leaves.

§

Touch me
like you do the foliage!
~Rae Armantrout “Conversations”

There is no season
when such pleasant and sunny spots
may be lighted on,
and produce so pleasant an effect
on the feelings,
as now in October.
The sunshine is peculiarly genial;
and in sheltered places,
as on the side of a bank,
or of a barn or house,
one becomes acquainted and friendly with the sunshine.
It seems to be of a kindly and homely nature.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne from  The American Notebooks: The Centenary Edition

Of course
I reach out and touch a leaf lit like fire
though cool on the surface,
the flame for show only

I can only guess at what the world might be like
for my grandchildren
but I do know this:
the leaves will turn fiery red in the fall
before they die.

So much has changed
since my grandmother stood on her porch
and wiped away a tear at the sight
of the reddening maples on the hillside.

And so much has not changed.

Upon the Bough of Morning

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The crust of sleep is broken
Abruptly—
I look drowsily
Through the wide crack.
I do not know whether I see
Three minds, bird-shaped,
Flashing upon the bough of morning;
Or three delicately tinted souls
Butterflying in the sun;
Or three brown-fleshed, husky children
Sprawling hilarious
Over my bed
And me.
~Jeanne D’Orge “Matins” (published in 1917)

This morning I broke through the misty tides of my dreams,
surfacing to cool morning air and prelude of a dawn bird chorus.

Today I wake imagining who I might be from a myriad of dreams…

Sometimes I wake as if once again a young girl,
sun coming through frilly curtains to shower my face with a warming light.

Sometimes I wake as if once again a sleep-thirsty student, hoping to snooze another 15 minutes before class.

Sometimes I wake once again as if a new mother,
dripping and leaking at the sound of my baby’s cries.

Sometimes I wake as if once again a weary farmer, up much of the night with a laboring mare and slow-to-suck foal.

Sometimes I wake as if once again a preoccupied physician, mentally reviewing the night’s phone calls and concerns.

Today I wake as a grandma, wishing my bed would bounce with a pile of birds and butterflies and jubilant children, wishing me good morning and eager to see me up and at ’em.

So who am I?

I was, I am, I will be all those things, as I hang tight to the bough of morning.