I watched recently as a young mother and her boyfriend were interacting with her three young children. The boyfriend got impatient with one of the kids, a boy of about five. A baby really. He growled at his squirming and scolded through clinched teeth and I couldn’t help but wince. Not because I was judging though. As a young mother of 23, I’m sure I expressed the same lost patience displayed by the boyfriend because as a young mom I had no context in which to compare children and behaviors good or bad and no experience in dealing with children who were growing to have minds of their own – gasp.
A grandmother knows however, that she’s been both a good parent and a not so good one. She has been the the PTA and room mom and the one who baked countless cookies and had all the kids at her house because it was the fun house and held those sweet cheeks in the palms of her hands just to kiss them ‘one more time’, one. million. times. She’s also the one who lost control and wished she hadn’t and lived the exhausted life of carting around 3 youngsters and she’s the survivor of weary temper tantrum days and come out the other side a little bit disheveled and “crinkled” but otherwise wiser as a result. She did the best with what she knew and her kids survived, albeit with a few scrapes and scratches. She has known and seen other good parents as well as bad ones, well-behaved children and little monsters and most often the two opposites embodied the same person on different days or even hours.
A grandmother talks softly because she’s learned that loud mouths do not make quiet, patient children and she spoils a little too much because she’s painfully aware of how quickly those years fly by in the rear-view mirror and she just wants one more memory to be stored up in the minds of those babies before they grow up and forget. She recognizes that a 7 year-old child is still just a little older than a baby; not the “almost teenager” that her parent self would have liked to believe.
The more years I tack on to my marriage, the more I realize its similarity to the young parent years. It’s all trial and error. Time has a way of making obvious what was once so incredibly invisible. Rebuking husbands with sarcasm doesn’t make for trusting conversationalists and the day to day exhaustion of working non-stop does not create memories worth looking at in an album years later. End-of-the-day hugs are better than wine and holding hands is more life affirming than holding a cell phone.
Today is Labor Day and it is defined as being “dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country.”
We’ve learned to labor quite well I’d say. What we need to celebrate is the slowing down and enjoying each day for the gift it is. My brother harped on me all the time about that and he’s now been gone going on 5 years. His birthday is Sunday. He’d be 53. Five years gone and I’m 5 years older, holding onto 5 more years of memories than he got to, and hearing his kids voices 5 years more than he was able to. I celebrate his legacy and how his words endure in my heart and in my life. I will always celebrate the day of his birth, and his indelible mark on so, so many lives. What a treasure he was!
I hope tomorrow brings you peace. I hope you pause in the morning and look at the sky and the formation of the clouds and the calm that comes with that moment. Soak it in and smile. Smile big. Carry on.
Today, and every day,
Elaine
