I didn't take the easy road in becoming a Grandma!

The day after Abigail was born, I came across an interesting question on my friend Carlos Whittaker's blog. "What was the hardest thing you have ever been through?" My response:

Wow, Carlos, funny you should ask this today as it is certainly on my mind. The hardest thing I have ever been through is that I was never able to have my own children. This was something I had to deal with constantly from the age of 29 (when my first husband and I tried to start our family), to age 35, the year I got divorced AND had a hysterectomy.

There were some very specific days I remember as the two worst in all that, the Mother’s Day six months after my failed infertility surgery, and the Mother’s Day six months after my hysterectomy. These were bad because I went to church and got treated like crap by pastors who wanted to focus all the attention on Moms. The first time, when I was 30, the assistant pastor asked all the moms to stand up. He then asked all the “men and young people” to stand up and join him in singing a song. I stayed frozen in my seat, and 18 years later, I think he’s still oblivious to that. The rest of that sermon, which was by a guest speaker, is a blur but I do remember it going so far down hill from there that by the end a mother of eight children was also insulted. Yes, I did quit going to that church after that, but for good reasons, went back a year or two later for a few more years.

Fast forward six years, and I am again at a different church, now having lost my husband and all hope of becoming a mom. The pastor there gives a sermon that basically said moms have unique gifts, and all men have other unique gifts – which of course led me to believe that I had no gifts whatsoever. I sobbed through that whole sermon. That pastor did realize the error of his ways, and called me the next day to apologize.

Why am I thinking about all this today? Because in 2000, two years after my second horrible Mother’s Day, I finally became a Mom. Holly was 19 years old then, Josh was 17. And yesterday, my 29-year-old “daughter” became a Mom for the first time. I am so, so, so, so happy for her. 99.9 percent of what I’m feeling is ecstacy. But there is that .1 percent that still says “Why couldn’t this have happened for me?”

But in the end, I have to say that God is good. I could not ask for two better stepchildren, and now I have a little girl in my life who will know me as “Grandma.”

Reflections of a Grandmother and Grandaughter

I actually wrote my first post before my granddaughter was born. I wrote it for the Sandals' Church blog, which had requested stories about our grandparents. There was an unexplained delay, so it actually was posted here first, but you can read it on their blog now too.

My grandmother, Helen Dill, is 90 years old. What a privilege it is to still be able to spend time with her! It is very sweet this year, because I had known since February that very soon, I too will be a grandmother.

Grandma was always looking out for the needs of others. It started when I was born, 3,000 miles away from her in Georgia. She hopped on a plane and was there before I came home from the hospital. Throughout my childhood, even though she was working as a nurse, she took care of my brother and me whenever my mom needed her help. She has always been one others could rely on for help as well. Even a few years ago, when my mom had surgery, Grandma was the one who came and took care of her until she was better.

Grandma has also amazed me with her acceptance of everyone. She may not approve of some things people around her are doing, but she just loves them with kindness. At times, as a younger Christian, I thought she was too accepting of others. Now, I realize that it is Christ's love she is showing them. She is one of the finest Christian women I know.

Although she has been legally blind for more than a decade, until last year when she moved into assisted living, she had someone take her every week to the women's Bible study at her church. She would increase her knowledge of the Bible simply by listening to women, some only half or one-third her age, discuss what they had learned by actually doing their Bible study. If I should suffer in my old age from the macular degeneration that blinded her and her mother, I will know exactly how to keep "reading" the Bible.

And even if my eyesight stays with me throughout my life, Grandma will be a role model to me in so many other ways. I hope to be for my granddaughter half the grandma mine has been and continues to be for me.