November, in spite of its location near the end of the year, always feels like a beginning to me. Fresh snow hides the dead leaves and hibernating perennials and the northern Manitoba landscape falls asleep under a white winter blanket. The world is new again.
Seeing summer slip away is never easy, but the falling snow seems to wipe my slate clean, allowing me a fresh start. I feel at rest. Work and family life continue, but it's more contained as we move indoors. Everything seems a little easier. November is a good thinking month.
This fall our babyTrekker business is twenty years old. Michelle, our middle daughter who inspired its creation, along with her younger sister Mari, are both off to college. This leaves their dad and I with an empty nest. We feel like newlyweds, but ones who contantly check Facebook for sightings of our children.
Fall has brought other new experiences to our family. My niece Beth gave birth in September to Lily, the first grandchild in our extended family. The excitement of this happy event has been ongoing. And now, our oldest daughter Hilary is pregnant with her first baby.
I don't know why, but I've had a little trouble taking it in. Its amazing, and wonderful, and yet...she's still my baby. Granted, she's twenty-six years old and has been married and working away from home for a few years. But I still picture her heading out the door for her first day of school, her little blonde head neatly braided, her kindergarten backpack too large for her small frame. I see her smile as she turns to wave, her other hand safely tucked into her dad's as they head down the driveway for the walk to school. That moment, that first letting go, was bittersweet.
Along with the new beginning this baby represents for Hilary and Bob, and for us as grandparents, it also signals another letting go. Becoming a parent is the ultimate growing up experience. The moment one's baby is born, the world changes completely and for ever. An all encompassing love is born in that moment and the feelings of protection toward that helpless infant are unlike anything else in the world. For many of us, it is the first time that we are truly empowered as individuals, and finally feel the strength of our own abilities. What we have often been too uncertain of or afraid to do for ourselves, we will do for our children. As a woman gives birth to her child, so she gives birth to her new self as a mother, and her partner as a father. The whole family, grand parents included, are born again into a new way of being.
When May arrives, Hilary, I will embrace the new you, the warrior mother, your best grown up self. But at the same time,to quote Blake Shelton, the country singer, 'I don't care if you're eighty, you'll always be my baby.'
