As a writer and former educator, I have spent a good part of my life focusing on the needs of children and, for many years, problem solving how to successfully fulfill those needs once identified. Clearly, children encompassed my entire existence and I would have to say that I did not think anything could possibly upstage the amazing experience of becoming a mother myself. I think I can speak for all parents when I say that our hope is that our own children will find friendship, love, and confidence and, in so doing, they will find a passion for something that will enrich their lives and perhaps ensure them a career.
In what seems like a nano second,your newborn baby is suddenly all grown up and now an adult. How well I remember watching my middle child, Colin, stand at an altar watching his bride come down the isle. I have replayed the look on his face many times over in my mind and it always puts a smile on my face. He just exuded love in every way and as his mom, it just gave me the most wonderful feeling of satisfaction that indeed he had found his soulmate and most of all, that he had the ability to love.
The next time I would see that look on his face was the day his first child, Ella, was born and I had the joyful thrill of having my own very first ELLA FIX. Holding my first grandchild in my arms was indescribable. I wanted to jump up and down and shout to the rooftops, “I am a grandmother!” It is a joyful thrill that I experience each time I see Ella only to be upstaged by the arrival of her sister, Charlotte. I wanted to capture that thrill so that when I am gone Ella and Charlotte have something to remind them of how thrilled and excited I was and am to be their grandmother. And so, in the summer of 2010 I captured that and more in the publication of MY ELLA FIX, On Becoming a Grandmother.
You don’t have to be a writer to share your own joyful thrill of being a grandmother and can easily do it by a letter, a poem, a short story or a piece of art. Do take the time to do this and put it aside in a safe place so that it can be treasured many years from now by your own grandchildren. When you are long gone, it will be your waying of sharing that joyfull thrill of their birth and it will keep their memory of you alive. It will keep you close and dear to their hearts as they are to you.