Mother of the Bride,
Part 2: A Grandma Journey
And a new blog is
born….
PROLOGUE
This is the blog
I’ve been eagerly anticipating writing- the one I’ve planned since February
2012. But you know what they say
about plans….
My lovely bride is
married 2 years and 4 months, even though she is past the bride stage and even
past the newlywed stage. Her
lovely house is 6 minutes away, which puts a smile on my face. I am thankful that she is in the same
state as we are and as close as the next town.
2012 is gone and I
wish it good riddance. It was a
year full of heartache, sorrow, illness, and an awful hurricane on top of it
all. Even the spark of promise and
hope was dissipated. It began
almost a year ago when we lost my wonderful brother-in-law, Scott, in an
instant, when he collapsed on his bedroom floor; his effervescent presence
vanished from our lives.
Lindsay decided
after her Uncle died, “life was too short and unpredictable”; it’s time to have
a baby and bring joy into our lives.
She got pregnant right away and on Valentines Day she and husband,
Scott, gave us cards and gifts with the surprise announcement that we were to
be grandparents sometime in October.
We were told to keep it a secret because of the uncertainty of the first
trimester. Just at the time when I
thought I could share my happiness with everyone and begin a new
blog, we got the awful news at the 12- week sonogram that the baby’s heart
stopped beating. Our hearts were broken.
The year got worse
and worse; I could write a book about 2012 and how awful it was. Mark, my husband, dislocated his
shoulder falling on ice in the backyard a few days before his brother died and
has dislocated it three times since this accident. It needs surgery; but instead of getting that surgery, he
had to have emergency hernia surgery.
My brother-in-law’s children have been removed from our lives because of
his nefarious ex-wife. His home
was in the ill-fated Rockaway Park, which was hit hard from Hurricane Sandy,
and my sister-in-law is bravely trying to go on, recovering from all that she
lost.
Through it all, Lindsay
and Scott persevered with their plans to have a baby and continued to try. We waited and waited, hoping at least
that she would get pregnant by the time her first baby was due- October 20th. I prayed. My mom prayed; she even got her friend from the senior
center, Mary Lillian, to pray. All
we had to do was wait for our prayers to be answered. Meanwhile, I kept looking suspiciously at Lindsay’s
belly.
Thanksgiving came–
my favorite holiday. Lindsay and
Scott hosted Thanksgiving at their home as they did the year before. They initiated a new holiday tradition
this year and gave us little pieces of paper and told us to write what we were
thankful for but not to write our name. We were to put these
little notes into a cup and then pass it around the table, take one out and
guess who wrote it. My mother
picked the note that said “I am thankful for expanding our house by
two feet”. It took a while for us
all to “get it” and discover that the two feet belonged to our grandbaby. Our prayers were answered. Thanksgiving did not let us down.
Still, I was told by
my very supersticious daughter that even though she was 12 weeks pregnant already,
I was not to tell anyone until she gave us the okay. So this blog lay dormant, but in my mind, I was writing it
every day, cautious not to put any words to a page while still in the hapless
year of 2012. Although, some good
things did happen in 2012- especially on Thanksgiving.
And my lovely bride, now a wife of 2+
years is 18 weeks pregnant. The
number 18 also has many good qualities.
In Hebrew, the word “Chai” means life and also is represented
numerically by the number 18. How fitting.
And the grandma journey begins with the
countdown of 21 weeks and 6 days to the estimated due date of June 8 and then
the best journey of all: as
Grandma Jeannie.
 |
| Nanny, with the Thanksgiving note, who will be Great Grandma soon! |
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