Grandmother

The seasons are changing again. Here in the south, autumn is beinning to show off her color. At the risk of sounding overly philosophical, the fall has me thinking a lot about life and death. Although, I’ve been a grandmother for seventeen years, I’m just now feeling the weight of it. Maybe its because we buried my own mother this past spring.

Nevertheless, I’ve become the matriarch of our family. 

Have you ever thought about how the seasons of life change, almost without notice. At least with mother earth, we see signs. Or maybe, it’s that we don’t pay attention to the signs as begin to show. Could it be that we just don’t want to acknowledge them?

So here’s my assessment.

My eyes may need stronger glasses, but my mind’s eye has the clearest vision as a grandmother.

When we are young, in the springtime of our lives, reality is often blurred by our youth.  For the most part, we live in the world created for us by our parents. Hopefully, love and protection fill our days. The main focus is simply following the rules from day to day.

The summer of our lives is adulthood. We enter it with a pocket full of ideals. We are certain that we know how life should be. It’s in this time, that we pass a lot of judgement on how our own parents did raising us. We have lots of theories about how life should be lived and raising children. Early spring we are planting these theory seeds.

As the heat of summer wears on, those seeds begin to sprout and take root. Neglected areas of our live start to grow weeds. Essentially, we start to see what we have planted. 

As sure as the summer rains fall, there is an ironic twist of fate that touches those years. The seeds that bloom are not what we thought we planted. We want roses. We find thorns.  The plan is to reap the sweet fruit of our labor. Instead, it is bitter and sweet mingled together.

Then autumn arrives.

Although autumn is beautiful, is the time of year that calls for the most work. It’s the harvest. That is when we work the hardest to bring in the crops.

The autumn of our lives is not the time to sit back and rest. But rather, it is the time to bring in the harvest. Gone are the crops that yielded bitter fruit. The long hours of sharpening skills, and honing relationship are bringing in the real harvest.

That is the life of a matriarch. The grandmother of the family.

She knows the winter is at hand. But she has seen the cold before–and it doesn’t scare her. As the grandmother of the family, she wears the wisdom she’s earned like the robe of color that adorns the trees of fall.

Is that you? Or do you still have a grandmother who deserves the honor?

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Grandmother

The seasons are changing again. Here in the south, autumn is beinning to show off her color. At the risk of sounding overly philosophical, the fall has me thinking a lot about life and death. Although, I’ve been a grandmother for seventeen years, I’m just now feeling the weight of it. Maybe its because we buried my own mother this past spring.

Nevertheless, I’ve become the matriarch of our family. 

Have you ever thought about how the seasons of life change, almost without notice. At least with mother earth, we see signs. Or maybe, it’s that we don’t pay attention to the signs as begin to show. Could it be that we just don’t want to acknowledge them?

So here’s my assessment.

My eyes may need stronger glasses, but my mind’s eye has the clearest vision as a grandmother.

When we are young, in the springtime of our lives, reality is often blurred by our youth.  For the most part, we live in the world created for us by our parents. Hopefully, love and protection fill our days. The main focus is simply following the rules from day to day.

The summer of our lives is adulthood. We enter it with a pocket full of ideals. We are certain that we know how life should be. It’s in this time, that we pass a lot of judgement on how our own parents did raising us. We have lots of theories about how life should be lived and raising children. Early spring we are planting these theory seeds.

As the heat of summer wears on, those seeds begin to sprout and take root. Neglected areas of our live start to grow weeds. Essentially, we start to see what we have planted. 

As sure as the summer rains fall, there is an ironic twist of fate that touches those years. The seeds that bloom are not what we thought we planted. We want roses. We find thorns.  The plan is to reap the sweet fruit of our labor. Instead, it is bitter and sweet mingled together.

Then autumn arrives.

Although autumn is beautiful, is the time of year that calls for the most work. It’s the harvest. That is when we work the hardest to bring in the crops.

The autumn of our lives is not the time to sit back and rest. But rather, it is the time to bring in the harvest. Gone are the crops that yielded bitter fruit. The long hours of sharpening skills, and honing relationship are bringing in the real harvest.

That is the life of a matriarch. The grandmother of the family.

She knows the winter is at hand. But she has seen the cold before–and it doesn’t scare her. As the grandmother of the family, she wears the wisdom she’s earned like the robe of color that adorns the trees of fall.

Is that you? Or do you still have a grandmother who deserves the honor?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

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