www.mycnews.com • Community News – St. Louis County • February 10, 2021
Senior Living
Still In This Together
5
By Vicki Bahr
A wonderful head start I moved the picture frame from the end table to sound and kissing their fingers and toes, counting make space for a holiday decoration and smiled as I higher than she was able to those last few years. She always do at one of the photos I hold most dear to knows, and she loves and she dances with joy at the my heart. It’s a picture of my mother in her wheel- two tiny miracles that will be ours when she’s good chair in the memory care ward at the nursing home as and ready to let them go, and not a minute before. our daughter, Becca, presents her with her twentieth Mom has earned this miracle and I’m sure she’s great-grandchild, Adler, four years ago. sharing so many secrets with the babies; telling them The look on my mom’s face is remarkably cogent what a wonderful mother they have waiting to care and overwhelmingly loving. She lived for her family, for them, and that she’s pretty crazy about their dad and was never happier in her final days than when the and big brother, too. She’s whispering to them how great-grandkids were visiting her, racing her through proud she is to be their great-grandmother, and that the halls in her wheelchair, fighting over whose turn she wishes she could have knitted a coming home it was to push her, listening to her repetitive stories outfit for each of them, but that she will say some exabout when she was their ages, coloring pictures and tra prayers for them instead and see that their paths admiring the door decorations of all her fellow resi- are a little easier when they least expect it. dents. She will cradle them and hold tight to their tiny Suddenly it hit me that the twins Becca is carrying hands until the moment that Becca and Andy do, and are the only grandchildren of mine my mother will she will be there with us as we welcome our newest never meet. She wasn’t able to pat Becca’s stomach miracles into the world. I’m pretty sure I will sense and tell us her predictions or exclaim with pride that these are the only twins in the family and how exciting it’s going to be to tell everyone that her granddaughter is having twins very close to her birthday and maybe she will hold on just a little longer than the doctor says and help her celebrate what would have been her 93rd birthday. Mom won’t be able to hold the babies and exclaim how much they look like their parents or wonder what they will be when they grow up. And I felt so sad that it took my breath away. But in the very next breath, I laughed out loud and shook my head in disbelief as tears rolled down my cheeks. Of course, she’s seen them! She knew before any of us that they were twins and that they were boys and she already knows their names, even though their parents haven’t agreed on one, let alone two of their names and are waiting to see the babies first. My Mom is holding them, one in each arm, parading them all around our heavenly family for their approval and their love. She’s bouncing them on knees that are no longer useless and arthritic, singing lullabies that she remembers every word of now, and whispering the knowledge of www.TheSarahCommunity.com the ages into their ears. She’s touching the hair we just saw on the latest ultra-
her smiling and crying right along with us and standing at the corner of the room in disbelief as she whispers, “And to think all of this started with your father and me.” I love you so much, Mom. And thank you for cradling our grandboys and keeping them safe until we could hold them in our arms. Vicki Bahr is an inveterate word lover and story sharer, a published author in magazine, newspaper and blog forms. As a mom of four, grandma of nine, and wife of one for nearly 49 years, she finds that inspiration and wonder are everywhere. The opinions expressed in this column are the columnist’s alone and do not reflect the opinion of the owners or staff of Community News.
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