Grandmom

Tomorrow my son is going with my husband's mother to see Cavalia.  Apparently it is an amazing show (what Cirque du Soleil production isn't, though) and C is incredibly excited.  This isn't a post about that, it's actually going to be about me.  And my Mom.  Of course.  The one year anniversary of her death is a few months away but I have yet to slow down thinking about her.

And the things that hit me hit me a couple of times, usually because it astonishes me that they bother me.

Like calling my husband's mother my son's grandmother.  How in the world could that possibly bother me?  After all, she's his "blood" grandmother, my mother ended up his grandmother only by marriage.  My husband's mother IS my son's grandmother.

But every time I say "My son is going to Cavalia with his grandmother" it is a punch in the gut.  Every. stinking. time.  It reminds me that she is his ONLY grandmother left to take him places, do things with him, laugh with him, give him thoughtful gifts.

Don't get me wrong - she does an ok job with it.  She has a few quirks here & there (don't we all) but when she does something with or for Christopher, she does it really, really well.

But my mother can't anymore.

And trust me - my mother LIVED to do things with her grandchildren.  Even the one people would say is "technically" not hers.  My mother is the only person on this planet to allow my son to eat enough junk food in one day that he actually threw up.  He's proud of that.  She was, too.

My mother would play the goofiest games, sing the silliest songs and do the sweetest things for her grandchildren.  They, after her 3 children, ruled her world.  She loved with a love unlike anything I've ever seen.

So - when I say "my son's grandmother" I used to have to differentiate.  Now I don't.  And that hurts.  Hurts with a fierceness I didn't expect. 

It is all so bittersweet.  More sweet than bitter but when I say "The last time my Mom did..." I'm not trying to indicate a length of time, I'm definitively referring to "the LAST time."  And I'm still not used to that.