The day she was born Alicia had been in labor for two and a
half days. She was in a special room
with intensive prenatal care, but the birth was still physically stressful. The doctor on duty was an intern who weighed
maybe a hundred pounds if she was soaking wet and I couldn’t stand her
inefficiency and rude manners. After she
was born the nurse in charge pronounced she had “terminal merc” as if none of
us knew what that meant. I began praying in tongues as eleven specialists
rushed into the room and tried to get the new baby to breathe.
That day changed my life.
It was September 27, 2009.
That was the day Harmony Janet-Suzanne Vosburg entered our world, and
after awhile she found her breath and her voice and started nursing from my
baby girl, Alicia.
I went to find a hotel because we had all been up for a few
days, but it didn’t work out and I ended up coming back to the expansive
birthing room to sleep in a chair. The
night nurse was taking vitals on the new baby and Mama and Daddy were asleep,
so I watched and marvelled. After she
was finished she wrapped her in a receiving blanket and placed her in her
plastic cot.
“Can I hold her?” I asked the nurse, a short woman a little
younger than myself.
“Well, okay,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. “Keep her head above her feet.” With this
piece of advice she showed me how to cradle my granddaughter in my arms as if I
had never held a baby.
Really?
An adventure in grandparenting 101 – you have ceased to know
anything and now you know nothing. You
are treated this way by many people, who claim to know more than you. Those are the people that don’t understand
the depth and breadth of a woman’s heart.
Your heart that has loved too much...loved the parent of this new baby
so much you have endured nights of tears and prayers and ache and joy that no
person should have to endure. Your heart
that knows that your own child is now beginning a journey that will make them
understand this love. In a way, your grandchildren are not only a
reward, but a comeuppance for your children – a chance for them to understand
you more.
Harmony has beauty, like her mother. In fact her expressions and manners are so
similar it’s scary. She is a light and a joy with a desire to experience
everything, no matter how dangerous it is.
She sits for hours, reading book after book. She nurtures her stuffed animals as if they
are real and breathing. In her world, Harmony is center-stage- always
performing for a dazzled audience.
The last time I was there it was Alannah’s first
birthday. The visit was also during a
move where my daughter went from an apartment to a cute duplex with a side yard
– during the hottest week of the year. A
lot happened that week and in the busyness and fury of activity I was given the
absolute joy and privilege of watching the girls.
I had a room at the local hotel- a Best Western with two beds
that the girls loved jumping on. They
had food I was instructed to buy “Lots of fruit, Grandma!” I watched Sponge Bob, read books, played
puzzles, went for walks – all while Alicia and Brian and Yaya (the other
grandma, Suzanne)moved homes and readied the property for a new renter.
I was in heaven.
Harmony now talks a mile a minute and is constantly
moving. I should have known. She kept me moving that week in a way that gave me renewed respect for young mothers, especially my daughter. It brought us closer and made me envious at the same time. How much I wanted sore muscled and a fatigued brain at the end of my days!!
Harmony lives 10428.4 miles away from us. That’s 16782.9 kilometers away from the city
we live in today, Johannesburg. It is no
distance at all when it comes to the heart and some of you who are separated
from kids and grandkids know what I am talking about. On Sunday she will have a jungle birthday
party and I will call her but she will be distracted by the fun and the noise
and her mom will be, as well.
Still, she glows in my heart, burning out a place I didn’t
know I had. A place that is raw and
tender and filled with more crazy, stupid love than I could have ever
imagined.
On the last day I was there in August I was bathing both
girls in their new bathtub. Harmony, I
noticed, had a scratch on her leg.
“Where did you get that, Harmony?” I asked, pointing to a
neat line that was pink and new across her leg.
“See that, Grandma?” she said, pointing to her scratch. “I got that in AFRICA!”
She seemed to think
that our hotel across town was where I lived - Africa. As if I was too lazy all these months to drive across town and see
her and be in her world.
The thought still makes me smile...and cry.
Happy Birthday, Baby.
You are the Harmony of all that is good in this world.