Grandparents Day

Sunday was Grandparents Day. Each year, it falls on a different date sometime in September. But I always think of it (I remember details and dates vividly) because it is right around the date that I first told my mom that she was a grandmother.

It was September 8th, 2009 when I called my mom on the phone and told her about our little Lily love. Over hours on the phone, the Lord restored our relationship and knit our hearts together in a new way, over our shared love for the precious wee babe growing in my womb. I was around 13 1/2 weeks gestation at that point. My mom says she feels like she was deprived all those weeks of knowing and loving Lily while she was here.

She is Lily's grandmother. Lily was her first-born granddarling. And she always will be. It takes a special kind of Grammy to learn to grandmother their granddarling of Heaven, with love that reaches across realms. Lily was my mom's only born grandchild for 6 years. Now she has my niece Harvest, who brings light into our lives. But there is always that Lily-sized piece missing... in every family photo and every holiday celebration. She will always hold her own place in the Allen family that time or new babies can never change.

my mom and Lily on March 16, 2010 🌸

I went to the Green Valley Book Fair in October 2009, when I was pregnant with Lily. I got my mom a Mary Engelbreight book called "When a child is born, so is a grandmother."

Now, because of everything that happened with losing Lily, I cringe a little bit at the title... because I realize that my mom became a grandmother, not the moment when Lily was born, but the moment she was conceived. She didn't lose her status as a grandmother because Lily died. It's still a special book, knowing I got it for my mom while Lily was here. I even have the dust jacket in Lily's scrapbook.

"Grandparents cry twice. They cry for their grandchild that died, and they cry for the inconsolable grief their own child has to bear." ~Mary Lou Reed

my sister, mom, and I when I was pregnant with Lily (March 2010)

My mom and I at her granddarling's special spot

Time, distance, and even death cannot thwart the love of a grandparent.

Though I miss my own dear grandmother, my Bumma, with all my aching heart, I'm incredibly thankful the Lord gifted me with nearly 28 years with her. My best friend, my mentor, my grief counselor, my sister in Christ. She is a treasure to each and everyone who knew her and I am somehow privileged enough to call her my grandmother and my daughter's great-grandmother. As so many people have told me since her passing, all of Crozet is missing her and feeling her absence. I'm convinced that all of Virginia, where she lived all of her 85 years, is missing her. ❤️

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