"Memories are like a garden. Regularly tend the pleasant blossoms and remove the invasive weeds."
January 1 2017
Twenty years ago today the Love of my life and I were
separate by about 1,200 kilometers. It is the only New Year’s we have been
apart in the 55 years we have been a couple.
It was the loneliest I’ve ever been yet filled with nervous anxiety of what was to come at any
moment and the reason I was on my own away from home, yet with family.
I watched 1997 arrive in three Canadian time zones on a
little TV in a cool room with huge
windows looking down on a deserted parking lot while snow gentle fell from
above. People came and went from the room but by the time I had watched the
third arrival of 1997 I was alone in a strange yet mystical stark place.
Twice I called my husband to update him but also to cry and
share with him my loneliness and the second time to bring in 1997 in our time
zone as well . He was with family so although he missed me he had family with
him.
Eventually I fell
asleep on a bench type couch only to be woken to a doctor being paged – a
distress page at that.
Would the end result of why I was here have a tragic ending
or a very happy one?
And now the rest of
the story :D
Around the middle of 1996 we found out we were to become
grandparents. The baby was due in
December a few days before Christmas.
Although the rest of 1996 is a blur there was much ado about having a
baby in our lives once again. I knitted,
cross-stitched and crocheted little
things and afghans, one for baby and the other a bigger version of baby’s, for
Mom. Got the family wicker bassinet out, cleaned up and made a new covering for
it.
1968 Father of Baby-to-be and 1996 the bassinet is ready for the next generation.
It was decided that we would spent Christmas with our son,
wife and the baby. I went down early by train, to be there when the baby
arrived. The bassinet was packed full of
gifts, all the baby stuff and whatever else was needed – it just made in under
the size and weight to go on the baggage car.
The soon to be grandfather was following later to join us for Christmas
and we would come home together afterward.
That was the plan but not what happened.
My train was late and
as the mother-to- be had come with our son to pick me up missed a good part of
her baby shower. When we arrived so did
the bassinet and it stood in the middle of the room as if it was the focus of
the shower while it was admired and took over the show.
The due date came and
went and we marked time walking or window shopping I found a sweatshirt that I
have been reluctant to give up but it brings back vivid memories of that time.
We attended a Christmas concert at the school our daughter-in-law’s nephew
attended and a dry run of an Ann Murray concert that would be filmed as part of a TV special to be on TV later. (Our DIL worked for a hotel and was given
tickets to the dry run). And I missed my four-legged baby Teddy my young blonde cocker spaniel who was home with the
guys - the soon to be, grandfather and uncle.
Granddad or so he
should have been, arrived and the four adults celebrated Christmas with an
empty Christmas stocking waiting for the little one to arrive. Granddad in-waiting went home and we marked
more time, walking and whatever. On the 31st our daughter-in-law had
a doctor’s appointment and woke with some pain. That was it there was no way
they were going and leaving me here, I wanted to be as near as possible to the
great event! It was a wise move because
the expectant parents never went back home.
I spent the day in and out of the room where the young couple were,
found something to eat and once again the rest of the day is a blur until they
were off to the delivery room and I to the waiting room down the hall. Every once in a while our son came to see how
I was and to ask if I wanted to go back to the apartment,-no way was I doing
that it would have been lonelier than I was down the hall from the action or
lack of it, it seemed.
In the meantime family of other mothers-to-be came and went.
Just after midnight a new grandmother came in to use the phone to announce her
good news, she was the grandmother of the first born baby in that hospital.
With that the loneliness was now sadness too and had me on the edge of tears. I
wanted so badly to share happy news yet our baby was taking its sweet time to
come into the world. Two more babies were born and tears of anxiety did flow
then all was quiet, it was as if I was alone in the world.
Now where I left off – not long after the doctor was paged somewhere
around 4 AM our son came to tell me he had a son – I stopped holding my breath,
followed him down the hall, was lead to a rocking chair and a little cocoon of
love was put into my arms – life has not been the same since. 
Not sure how many days later Granddad came back we had some
time with the family then we headed home to my new for rocking grand-babies chair
- a Christmas gift from Granddad. 
For years after that our vehicles knew no other direction to
head in but little did we know what the next two years was to bring.
Today our eldest grandchild celebrates his 20th
birthday not sure but maybe with the Love of his life.
When the baby was five moths old he and his mother came to spend some time with us and the rest of our family got to meet him. They were here for Mother's Day one of the best I've had 
The announcement we had put in our paper meeting his uncle and the first woman of interest in his life, his one day to be aunt :D Teddy thought he had a new playmate and would bring his tennis ball to him to play (on tray of Jolly Jumper) The two of them traveled together in the back seat of our van when we brought our grandson home for a visit.
In 1967 Canada
celebrated the Centennial
of Confederation and we were expecting our eldest, his father. Now in Canada’s
150 anniversary of Confederation, it sesquicentennial year, there are two more generations in our family
so much to celebrate - proof that life
goes around and around in a circle.
"Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them."
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