Blessed

 

Yesterday was one of those very rare days in which I hear from all four of my kids in the same day. That usually only happens on Mother's Day and my birthday (and sometimes not even then). My kids are busy living their best lives, and I can appreciate that. I didn't call my mom very often when I was their age. Then again, my mother and I had an entirely different relationship than I do with these amazing people.

It was my youngest grandson's birthday yesterday. Jordan turned eight. Or, as he put it, "I'm becoming eight today." Yes, sweet boy, I hope we are all "becoming" our best selves. His mother (Younger Daughter) and I chatted for an hour about life and her plans for the future, near and far. When I walked out of my den and looked out the kitchen window, I saw a gigantic plume of smoke--another out-of-control wildfire is burning in the next town over. Here we go again....

An hour or so later, I received a text from Younger Son (who currently lives in Ohio): "Hey Mom, are you doing okay?" Checking in, because he heard about the fire. Then Older Daughter did the same, concerned about the air quality down here. She and Hubby live and teach in Lake Arrowhead. They were getting ash drifting down on their deck. Several hours after that, Older Son called from the Bay Area. "So, you have another fire down there?"

My kids will not know (unless they read this blog post, and they seldom read my blog posts, because they are busy living their best lives) that I went to sleep last night with a bit of a happy glow about me.

I am blessed. All of my children lived to adulthood. (Dang, tho, with my boys, it was dicey at times, I'm not gonna lie. You see that gray hair in the photo above? My girls didn't give me that. My boys did. Whew.) All four were employed--until the pandemic, when two were laid off, but Younger Daughter has just been offered a new job, so she'll be working soon, and Younger Son has a nice cushion of savings, and he will resume work after the pandemic--when he returns to California permanently. (Yay!)

Most important, though, they are good, kind people. No, we do not always agree on everything. (Boy howdy!) No, they do not parrot back my own belief systems. (If only!) But dang... in spite of the haphazard parenting I did at way, way too young an age, these guys turned out to be stellar human beings, and sometimes I'm just in awe of that. They are all ethical people of sound integrity who think for themselves and are not afraid to voice their opinions and stand up for what is right and justice. Damn, I am so proud of them. (Sorry, can't help it. Shameless Mom boast. Hang on--it gets worse.)

My happy glow rekindled this morning when my junior-in-college granddaughter sent me a text: "Hey Nana, how is it over there?? Are you doing okay?? Do you need anything??"

So yeah, my grandkids--all six of them--are also stellar human beings. Well, okay, Jordan is just now "becoming eight," so maybe he'll turn out to be a thief or a thug, but he's already an animal lover, and his best friend is his black cat, "Lucky," and he loves to read, so I think his mama is on the right track with him.

 All that is just to say this:

Parenting is hard. Damn hard. We struggle blindly, wishing for a crystal ball so we can really determine what is "best" for them through any given crisis or major decision or, lord help us, meting out of consequences, but there is no instruction book, and each one is absolutely different than his/her/their siblings. We just do the best we can, often throwing up Hail Mary passes, and we pray, we pray really hard, that they will "turn out all right." And when they do, we are amazed. And blessed. Really and truly blessed.