Bittersweet Life Cycle Moments – a Reason Not to Write

Bittersweet Life Cycle Moments – a Reason Not to Write by Debra H. Goldstein

Sometimes, life gets in the way of writing. This is one of those weeks that my thoughts are more concerned with life cycle events than they are with “writing.” By the end of this week, my sister and I will both welcome grandchildren. She knows hers will be a girl; my daughter and her husband opted to be surprised.

I always have referred to my daughter and her twin brother as being my miracle children. Having them wasn’t easy – my pregnancy, while successful, also forced this type A person to spend almost eight months on my back or in and out of hospitals (I empathize with Princess Kate and Amy Schumer). Although the holy terrors were due on April 1 (it seemed appropriate for me at the time), they arrived in February, but they thrived. They now are grown, and my daughter is having her own child.

Talking to my friends who are in the same position, we all agree our children’s pregnancies are a time of excitement and fear. We want the pregnancy to go well and the baby to be born healthy. We can’t wait to hold our children’s babies and we pray we can still remember and have the endurance to feed, burp, diaper, and do the other chores — like running up and down the stairs, associated with a newborn.

This is another time of miracles.

But I’m also saddened that my sister and I can’t share our moments of joy with our mother. Perhaps our daughters will memorialize her (or our father) by naming their babies after them, but it isn’t the same as it would be to see the excitement and happiness these children would have given their great-grandmother. The picture at the top of this blog was taken of my mother at my daughter’s wedding. Mother’s face radiates her thrill of sharing in that life cycle event. Can you imagine how she would have felt this week?

By this time next week, my sister and I will both be beyond Cloud 9, but I’m sure as we count fingers and toes and check out hair and eye color, a momentary thought of whether the babies bear any resemblance to their great-grandmother will flit through our minds. What about you – any bittersweet wonderful life cycle moments?

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