The Boy Who Made Me a Grandmother

 

Tomorrow is Shaun's birthday. ....

and I was there at the hospital when he took his first breath and let out his first cry. It is hard to believe that was twenty-seven years ago.

People talk about becoming grandparents as if it were just another family milestone. For me, it felt like an entirely new chapter. One day, I was a mother. The next day, I was somebody's grandmother.

And what a lucky grandmother I was. For ten years, Shaun was my only grandchild. There were no siblings or cousins competing for attention. No juggling schedules between multiple grandchildren. It was just Shaun.

I got to watch everything. I watched him grow from a baby into a little boy, then into a young man, and now into a grown adult with a life of his own.

I don't know if there is such a thing as a perfect child but I do know this: I had the perfect experience of becoming a grandmother. I had time. Time to know him. Time to spoil him. Time to create memories that belonged only to us.

Looking back now, I realize that what I remember most are not the big events. It is the feeling. The feeling of having this little person enter the world and somehow enlarge my own.

That is what grandchildren do. They make your heart bigger than you knew it could be. The funny thing about being a grandmother is that you never stop seeing all the ages at once. Even now, when I look at Shaun, I can still see the baby whose first cry I heard in that hospital room. I can see the little boy he was and the man he has become. All those versions still exist in my memory.

Tomorrow is his birthday, but if I am honest, it also feels a little like the anniversary of my grandmotherhood. The day he was born, a new person came into the world. A grandson. And a grandmother.

Happy Birthday, Shaun.

You have brought more joy to my life than you will probably ever know.