Mother's Day

I was sitting in Nathan's room, where he goes to watch all the Laker games and Laker behind the scenes footage, it is the Laker Den in there, and everyone was out at dinner, this night before Mother's Day, and we'd all been in the pool, and running around cause kids like to Do Stuff all the time, and I'm just running along flinging sandwiches and popsicles at people - and here it is quiet for a second cause everyone's out.

And I just saw my niece Aela who's more like a cousin to me, or little sister maybe, and she's a doctor doing important doctor birthing things. And my old college roommate was over, and she does important actor and yoga things out in the world. And I'm sitting in this Laker room and looking at the pictures on Nathan's wall, and there are these babies. Pictures of my babies on the wall. There's where my last 12 years went. They say it's nothing being a mother, you have to be a mother and something else, something monetary and worthwhile, and maybe it is helpful to do that. But I'm looking at these babies on the wall, and thinking I got to see every moment. Almost every moment. That's a pretty remarkable thing. In one of the pictures, Nathan and Emma are babies laying on the floor, and in the very corner is the toe of my grandmother's white sandal. She got to meet them. As I get older, I realize I have much in common with her. She liked a good joke, she loved living near water, she liked playing cards, she loved family gatherings, she read and was curious about the world. She fed people. She hugged you. She did that for my mom. She did that for me.

A mom is a killer thing to be. A gramma must be even better. All that love, but like zapped with gramma power. Cookie jars that aren't off-limits. Conversations that can just be a conversation, not a power struggle. Ahk, daughterhood is hard. I see that with Emma as she strives for 11 year old independence.

But looking at those pictures, I thought that time when Lilly was a baby, or the other two were babies, that that was the best time. But I look at them now, and get outta here, this moment? This is the best time. This very moment. Look how far we got. Look at Lilly making volcanoes all day and passing them out to people she cares about. Who makes a volcano? Emma and I watched "Price is Right," and some lady on it was named "Vart" (I'm not kidding) and we've been laughing for days, imagining that poor lady in high school, every time she walked in a class, it musta been "Who Varted in here??" And Nathan, big ole Nathan at night, always tells me important stuff in the dark. Like when Richie and Katie lived near us, that was when he really got into bologna.

Right now is the best time.

I miss my gramma, but I'm doing everything she'd want me to be doing. Being there.