I had an intense, sometimes very painful relationship with my mother. We disappointed and failed one another in predictable ways for years until we stopped trying to cram our misshaped expectations into the holes we thought we could fill. That took a minute or two.
Then I had my children, both boys which for some reason she liked more than girls. (Different story for a different day). She fell in love with them and they with her, in a ‘who ever loved who loved not at first sight’ kind of deal and no matter how they changed and grew, she was their biggest fan until the day she died.
My kids are long grown now but every once in a while they’ll say to one another: “Remember that time we were at Bubbe’s and such and such happened” and they will smile at one another. They share memories about her to me, too.
She did things with them that she never would have done with us. At one point I had a weird work schedule (I always had a weird work schedule) and I needed her to pick my youngest up from nursery school on Tuesdays and keep him for a couple of hours which she gladly did. Every week she took him to McDonalds and then to his/their favorite donut shop for a glazed donut and a Martinelli’s apple drink. My mother fought overweight her entire life and was an early shunner of white bread, fried foods and all things instant. My sister and I would have needed to get an Act of Congress to call that lunch when I was small but it’s one of my son’s happiest memories and it doesn’t seem to have hurt him any.
My sons were in college and high school, respectively when my mother passed. She left a big hole in all of our lives and my children’s memories of her are much less complicated than mine. To them she was just the best friend ever.
When my younger son and his wife announced that they were pregnant, almost two years ago now, they asked my husband what he wanted to be called and then they both asked me if I would mind if my grandson called me “Bubbe”. That’s probably the biggest compliment that anyone has ever given me. The thought that I could fill those immense and gorgeous shoes. What a privilege it is to try.