the ties that bind us in a happy knot

When it began to snow this morning, and my mother's brow furrowed as she contemplated navigating the slippery roads back to Pennsylvania, can you blame me if I could barely repress a smile? Sure does look bad out there, I said. We're only thinking of your safety. You'll have to stay another night, I guess.

And she did! Here she is in the kitchen, playing hangman and making acrostics with Frances while engaging in sock battle with Gabriel. When intergenerational family life works, it really works.

 

 

When I can sit back and take a breath, I am awed by the pathways of love that seem to be running in and out and through us when we are all together. Watching my mother take care of my children, I feel so tenderly cared for myself. And when my children run and shout for joy when she walks in the door? I melt like butter. Just knowing she is nearly as interested in them as I am deepens my connection to her and to them. (Plus it takes the edge off the sense of infinite responsibility that comes with being a parent.)

When I became a mother, I began to understand and empathize with my parents in a new way. That process never stops, as Mike and I encounter each new stage of parenthood with our growing little ones, and new memories and insights from our own childhoods flicker to life. Isn't it extraordinary? You think you know a person. And you do. But life takes you to new places - the light shifts, the wind blows gently in a new direction - and suddenly you see that person with new eyes. The person she is opens up in surprising yet consistent extraordinary ways.

What facets of our relationship will catch the light and shine as my children grow, as my sister becomes a mother, as I age? Oh, the happy mysteries of being a family, ever unfolding into the past and future!