The More Things Change...do they ever really?

I truly do like to post here about the joys in life.  Despite the heartaches that life often brings, the disappointments, the hardships, more often than not, life for me...has been beautiful and full of things of wonder and delight.   I don’t get here often to post, and that is because life is full, busy and rich.

Sometimes, however, I have a morning like I am having today and in those times I allow myself to reflect on things that have hurt me utterly and to the core of my being.

I’ve posted about being an afterthought before and I don’t mean to beat an already UGLY dead horse, but it has happened, yet again.   Not only happened again, but in the same manner…and by the same person.  Someone I would have hoped better of.   I suppose I need to reevaluate how he perceives me.

Nothing fills the deepest pocket of my soul and fills as many pages of my lifebook with joy as those two little spirits do.

Being a grandmother is one of my biggest joys, my greatest privileges, and the literal delight of my heart.

I love those grandchildren like I can’t begin to explain. I tell everyone who will listen that if you think you know love, if you think you cannot love anything more than your own children, you have no clue what awaits you when you become a grandparent.

The moment that baby boy and sweet girl were placed within my viewing vicinity, I was lost.

I attempt to explain it that this tidal wave of intense, indescribable love washed over me…no, it didn’t just wash over me but enveloped me. My brain was instantly hard wired to some yet unused portion of itself that reverberated with a need to see them often, be with them whenever I could, love them unconditionally, listen to them with my whole being, and to be so interested in their life that other things took second place. It is an instant bond that I can’t explain, don’t understand and never want to be without.

Love…well, love is my grandchildren.

When I am with them, I feel healthier. I feel more alive. I feel younger. That wave of love that hit me when they were just newly born still hits me every single time I see them.

Their voices, once little and high pitched, now growing deeper and more mature still thrill me the same. Their stories, no longer little sillinesses and jokes, but more serious, spiritual, or deep still mean the world to me. I hold each shared detail close in my heart. I ponder things after they’ve gone. I journal from time to time about them, and often post little anecdotes on my Facebook page, because those things are either so interesting, intriguing, witty or precocious they must be shared.

Each day that I drive to work, I drive near my grandson’s school. I blow a mental kiss that way and ask our God to give him a phenomenal day. It is important, because he is important. I see their photo on my desk at work and whisper a prayer that God will guide them and be with them.

They are the soul food of my life.

A couple years ago, their father took them on a vacation and took their grandfather, my ex-husband with him.   He’s taken their grandfather to several special-type events with them.  Making memories with them and him.  I’m glad they are getting these times, and I don’t begrudge the time they have together.  I want them to love their grandfather because if I know one thing about their grandfather, I know he loves them too.  That same tidal wave swamped him as well!

What hurts me is that I am often overlooked for these things.  I’m good in a pinch to pick them up or keep them, and I covet those times.  I wish I had more of them.   I wish, however, that I was the first one thought of, just one time, when making vacation plans, as a travel partner.   “Boy wouldn’t it be great if Mom could come, she’d love it and the kids would have so much fun with her.”   I’d love to be a person thought of when it was time to take them to a play or concert…even just as a courtesy.

I need to realize that this will not happen for me.  It is a hard realization for me.  I never thought it would end up this way.  My vision of grammy’dom was that I’m fun, I like to do fun things.   Because of health I won’t be able to do them much longer, so why the heck not get as many in as we can, while we can.

I'd love to have a real conversation about this.   I'd love to be able to share my heart.   I'd love to understand the dynamic a bit better because for me...with understanding comes peace.  I wish that could happen.

Instead I’m relegated to the nag pile.   Instead I’ve become a nuisance.  Instead…I am the afterthought.

No one wants to be the afterthought.   Ever.

I believe my only recourse is one of the two scenarios…

Let it go, but have a talk with my grandbabies and explain that I’d like to go, with my entire heart and soul, to be there when they experience new things to hear their thoughts on it, to tuck that away into my heart to ponder again when I can’t do things with them.   Tell my grands that to be with them is the joy of my life and that it is my deepest dream to have a great memory trip with them.   Tell them that I keep trying, and wishing, and dreaming and that perhaps one day it will happen.  They’ll remember that.  I know they have a deep abiding love of me.

Or…

Remain the nuisance and tagged nag, and keep at it until he relents, and then he’ll do it begrudgingly which will rob us all of any joy, and who wants that? 

This is a battle I can’t win.  I won’t win.   So what recourse do I have?   I think scenario one is looking better and better!