Campbell said you have to be prepared to give up the life you had planned for the one that presents itself and no truer words were ever spoken. Yesterday, having not seen my mother one day I was feeling very sad and anxious and guilty and throw any emotion in there you want – I was feeling it. Then work was firing on all cylinders as it is earnings season and there were ups and downs and I felt like a deer in the headlights. Then the adoption proceedings were pitching too many balls in the air to even try to catch. And at some point, beyond meltdown, I found myself speeding finally to the hospital to visit my mom who if she had any idea of what was going on would be mortified at her condition, and afterwards, I just left there with a deep well of sadness. My aunt called right as I was leaving and was very comforting having gone through this with my grandmother.
Then I came home, again to a quiet house as our houseguests and T were at the conference, and I sat on the porch and took a big deep breath and then headed to the tub and filled it with sage oil and milkbath foam and just got in and soaked. It’s amazing how getting in that tub is a true Calgon take me away moment – the phone was ringing, the dogs were barking, and I wasn’t moving.
I know my mom is not going to be here much longer … she’s barely here now. I know that I have always wanted a child and may be close this time and I really wanted my child to know their grandmother because mine was so important to me. But I stopped on my walk around the bayou with Loca this morning to chat with my good friend and neighbor who was reading her newspaper on her screen porch and I was telling her all this and I conceded, well T’s mother will be one grandmother for the child. My friend then volunteered to be another grandmother for the child. And said, hell, you’re old enough to be a grandmother to the child.
So there it is, I am having a grandchild not a child, and it’s not my child but another’s child, and I’m having it with another mother, not a father, and the child is going to have not my mother but many women who will be grandmothers, and many fathers and grandfathers. It wasn’t what I thought would happen, but it’s all good.