Becoming a Nana
I’ve begun collecting dichos, Spanish proverbs, for my unborn granddaughter. I call her Lulu and she will have pale skin, like her parents, and hopefully her mother’s sapphire blue eyes and thick, blond hair. She will look nothing like me and yet I will create a legacy for her. Lulu will be gifted a library of books beginning with the Lorax and the Little Engine that Could.
I want to buy her Stellaluna because there is a bat who has made a home in the attic and swoops through her nursery. I have made a list of the concerts I attended in high school so she knows what music moved my spirit as a youth. I will buy her first tool box, because every woman should learn how to fix things and be independent. I will buy her a silver engraved cup, mirror and brush so she feels special. I have made her a pottery bowl to hold her crystals so that she knows art and magick. I am knitting her a blanket.
I did not give birth to Alethia, my step-daughter, but I have been in her life since the day she was born. I am eternally grateful that her mother made space for another women to love her daughter. When Alethia was little, I would wrap her up in a blanket, pull her onto my lap to stroke her hair and read her books in a wooden antique rocking chair. I held onto the Quaker, oak rocking chair for nearly two decades, waiting for Alethia’s turn at motherhood.
Two weeks ago, we loaded the chair into the truck and drove to Estes Park, Colorado to meet Alethia and her husband who were driving from Michigan. We drove through Nevada and Utah deserts and the majestic Grand Tetons and wonders of Yellowstone. Every night we pulled out the rocking chair as we set up camp, listening for the sounds of wildlife nearby. I considered the mother love this chair had held as I rocked all three of my children. I envisioned becoming the kind of Nana whose wisdom makes a child feel safe and whose unconditional love is like an eternal spring of water.
It’s not easy being a parent, especially when second guessing becomes second nature. The ground is even shakier as a step parent, a second mom, a bonus mom, whose motherhood experience began with summer visits. Once, when Alethia was four-year-old, I worried that she would choke on small Lego pieces and smacked Ali’s hand away from danger. I hope that she has forgotten the moment that I did not trust her intelligence and remembers brighter moments of parenting. Now that I’m at this threshold, wondering what I traditions I bestowed, I realize that parenting regrets carry more weight than most transgressions.
I hope she remembers that I wanted her to have butterfly kisses from her daddy. And that I bought her Hallmark angels for her birthday. I hope she remembers that I kept lavender satchels in a special drawer for her clothes for her visits every summer. I’m certain she recalls when we got up for midnight book release parties of Harry Potter and lazy days at the beach.
I hope I dropped seeds of wisdom as we drove across country together with her dog in the backseat so she could spend a college-aged summer in California. And that we shared an elevator with Sigourney Weaver when we toured University of Berkeley. Maybe she holds on to some bit of advice that will help her navigate the maddening and blessed gift of motherhood and supporting a daughter’s dreams.
When Alethia was in freshman year of college, her father and I split up. I called to let her know I would always be there for her. Her carefree laughter was contagious as she claimed, “Of course you will. Where else would you be?”
Alethia means truth and my daughter has been one of my best teachers. Mothering a daughter has inspired me to be a woman of courage and creativity, who understands her divinity: the kind of woman I want my daughter and my daughter’s daughter to be. And she was right - I will always be here, now waiting with bated breath to become a Nana for my little Lulu.