Charm and Grace

I finally put my finger on it.  It was grief.  I am emerging from an eleven-month period of feeling acute loss.  Tears would well up at any time.  Driving in the car on the way to work was Prime Time for tears. I figured it out two weeks ago.  I can name the day when it started, and I can now give it a voice. I am fifty-nine years old and I have eight grandchildren.  This is amazing to me. My four children are essential to me.  I grew up with them, tried not to break them, and now they are my friends. I lean on them, and remarkably to me, they occasionally lean on me. While it may not be strictly accurate, there seems to have been one or two grandchildren per year for about six years. They run the painter’s pallet from blonde with bright blue eyes, light brown locks and soft brown eyes, black hair with gray-green eyes, and most recently, strikingly red hair with Texas blue bonnet eyes.  While my children are the air that I breathe, my grandchildren are the blood that runs through