Becoming a Grandmother

I held my first grandchild for the first time last Tuesday. Her name is Lila. She weighs seven pounds, two ounces, and she has my mother's chin.

I thought I knew what love was. I have loved my husband for forty years and my children for all of theirs. But holding Lila was something new, love with a whole lifetime of memories folded into it.

I looked at my daughter, exhausted and glowing in that hospital bed, and I remembered holding her the same way, terrified and amazed. Now she was the mother, and I was the one who got to stand back and watch.

Life goes in circles like that. The baby becomes a mother, and the mother becomes a grandmother, and the love just keeps getting passed down like an heirloom that grows instead of wearing out.

I've already bought Lila far too many books. I can't wait to read them all to her.