With Valentine's Day in the air, hearts and love are everywhere.
I was working our annual tradeshow booth recently, and as I have come to experience, grandparent love is always in the air.
So many customers are grandparents, and each has heartwarming stories about their grandparenting experience. I heard about a playroom being designed with a lollipop theme, receiving pregnancy news over the holidays, and plans for an upcoming grandchild sleepover they couldn't wait to get home to.
As I happily nod and listen to the glowing stories and unabashed happiness, I thought, what is it that grandparents have? Why at this time in life does everything seem so much "lovelier". I thought back to my own experience as a new Mom to understand.
As a new mother, I was stunned…no, blown away by the love I felt for my first child. What an "ah-ha" moment in life. Did my mother feel this way about me? Was that why she was always interested in where I was, keeping in touch, wanting to make sure I was ok? Was that the reason she often said, "We are doing this because we love you?'
Was love the reason she cried when I moved across the country, and without reserve spent months away from home to help care for me and my newborn twins?
OK, now I get it…I mean I really get it.
When I was pregnant with my second child, I had the same thoughts many Moms having their second child have. You question how you could possibly love another child as much as the first. It is so big, so awesome, so consuming, is it possible to feel that for another? And how about another and another?
But motherhood is amazing because the answer is simply and easily answered -YES.
That's it.
The second arrives and you are again blown away. Your heart doesn't say, "Sorry that's enough, you've given all the love you have. If anyone wants more, they will have to share." No in fact, your heart grows.
The challenge in mothering is as your children get older convincing them of this. They endlessly vie for your time and attention. They measure your love like slicing the last remaining piece of cake in perfectly equal portions.
They are unaware although your time is finite, your love is not.
The heart is not something to divvy out in equal portions. When they say a child is always a part of you, I think what they mean is you have a unique heart inside you for each of them.
And so I see the magic of grandparents. Grandparents have been through parenthood and know without a doubt, with 100% certainty that they can love without condition, because they learned love is infinity.
They get it.
There is no time needed to figure things out, it was done long ago. Grandparents are joyful and giving because they understand loves mystery and when given a second chance they fill the air with love just like Valentine's Day.
