Quite often as our second grandchild was due to make her appearance into the world I marvelled at her parents determination in everything they do, but remembering how at one point we had 5 children under 12 and moved to a derelict farm with two sets of in-laws living alongside us in caravans!
I recounted to one of my oldest friends last week (in fact we have agreed to be surrogate sisters since Mum died) that only now, as a parent myself, could I realise what my mum must have thought when we announced a fifth baby on the way, a business to run and plans to move house en masse. My friend told me that mum did think we were crazy, and in fact she wondered whether we would ever stop having children...but I left 5+ to Ken, so Mum ended up with 13 grandchildren in all, not a bad number from just the two of us, the only kids from both Mum & Dad's immediate familes...
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| Mum with baby JB, Christmastime 1994 |
.. so, as the teenagers in our family have helped me so much this week to entertain the non-stop dynamo, aka Lilly, I have quietly appreciated all the more the stability and endless patience my own mum had for me: always there to drop children with, always listening, never judging, all for us.... sadly I cannot profess to being as available, as patient, and certainly I am not as good at listening and I do try not to judge...
Luckily perhaps for me, it is a new world and the demands of work and 21st Century living in general will never let the comparison between life for me and my mum be very obvious to anyone else, but I thank her every time I get the chance to pay it forward a generation...and somehow I reckon maybe Kate will collect from Lisa someday when she gets the chance to 'collect'...xxx
(not sure if this makes sense to anyone.. but as Lisa says, probably no-one reads it anyway!)
I read it and it makes perfect sense to me, I see exactly where you are coming from. Glad alll is well xx
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