Post-Covid Reunions

For the first time since the pandemic, two of my grandsons came for a weekend overnight. These are the first two grandsons I babysat after I retired. These are my first two baby crushes. All you grandmothers know what I mean, that unbounded love for the vulnerable little ones placed in your arms.

So let me back up. Newly retired, when my daughter-in-law went back to work part-time, I offered my Mary Poppins services immediately. First, it was peek-a-boo. Then chase me. Then hide and seek. Then slow walks to the park noticing: storm drains, fire hydrants, roly poly bugs beneath the rocks, worms beneath the leaves, blue jays on the power lines, until we got to the swings and the sliding boards. Then there were stories and naps, building cities and knocking them down, learning letters and numbers, playing in the wading pool, eating popsicles on the porch, building snowmen in the backyard. No matter what we did, the fun was just being together.

When they moved across the state, oh, how I missed them! We visited as often as possible, but it was never enough.

Then came another grandson to babysit when my local daughter went back to work. And then his younger brother. Three days a week now we play and enjoy each other. The last time he left my house,  his mother said he cried, “Grandma,” all the way home.  

I have another daughter who lives a four-hour flight away. Of course, I can’t babysit for her little darlings, but as often as possible, I spread my wings and visit for a week or so. The last time I saw them was in April after I was vaccinated, and when their grandpa and I said good-bye, they cried too.

Getting back to this past weekend, our oldest grandsons rediscovered all the toys in the toy closet. They got up every morning at 5:30 and got out the cards to play War. They helped me gather the eggs from the hen house, and we made scrambles for breakfast. Their local younger cousins came over to splash in the wading pool with them and swing on the swings. We ate watermelon together and tried to reconnect what had been disconnected by Covid.

The last morning of the boys visit, we went to a nearby lake. The younger brother built cities in the sand. The oldest can swim now and played crocodile while I defended myself with a squirt gun. When he was cold, he got out, and shivered in his towel. “I don’t want to go home.”

I told him, “I think I know how you feel. When I was a little girl, I visited my grandmother every summer and had tons of cousins to play with. She had chickens too and a river where we went swimming and fishing. I hated to go home because I loved them so. Is that why you’re sad?”

His eyes misty, he nodded his head.

I could have told him even more. How my grandmother’s farm was like heaven to me, surrounded by a tribe of people who loved me unconditionally, who made me feel like I belonged to something bigger than myself that made me feel safe and special and incredibly lucky. But I did tell him that I was sad too because I would miss him until we saw each other again, so I made plans with his mommy to do so.

Reflecting on our weekend, I remember when I was a child, how time turned so slowly while I waited forever for my birthday or Christmas. I wonder if the pandemic decelerated time until my grandson feared he’d never see the people he missed again.

As a grandma my time races by with day-blurring velocity. And the pandemic has given me an urgency to spend what time I have left with my dearest. Perhaps we’ve all been stricken with PTSD, Pandemic Time Sense Distortion. Or maybe that’s another name for our own mortality. Surely, no matter how old we are, we long for a perfect world where we can be together forever with those we love.

That reminds me of an old hymn from my childhood:

“Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.

The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.

We share our mutual woes, our mutual burdens bear; and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part it gives us inward pain; but we shall still be joined in heart and hope to meet again.”

When we asunder part it gives us inward pain, but we shall still be joined in heart and hope to meet again.

John Fawcett 1740-1817

Cover Photo by Dragos Gontariu on Unsplash