Can't Stop Singing on Cloud Nine While Awaiting First Grandchild

The Boston Globe

I'm singing a lot these days - out loud, off-key. But who cares? I'm singing love songs: ``You Are My Special Angel,'' ``Getting to Know You'' and ``You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You.''

Who'd have thought?

I've been in love before. I'm familiar with cloud nine. I've been there, seen the place, walked starry-eyed along with all the other young people strolling hand in hand. Been back a few times, too, because there's a special place for parents of children and owners of dogs on cloud nine.

But I had no idea that there is another special place and that I would be whisked there, kidnapped, swept off my feet, at a time in my life when I thought I had my two feet planted firmly on the ground.

“The very thought of you, and I forget to do the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do. I see your face in every flower, your eyes in stars above.''

How do you love someone you have never seen? How do you love a person you don't even know?

My daughter, Lauren, is having a baby. She's due in 12 weeks, and I'm not surprised that she and her husband are in love with this life that grows bigger and stronger every day. I'm not shocked that their feet refuse to touch the ground. But I'm surprised that I'm up there in the stratosphere with them.

When I was 14 and in love with the idea of being in love, I read books and poetry and watched movies and listened to music that was all about love. And I wrote love stories, too, though I was only imagining love.

I suppose I'm just imagining it now.

Every Friday morning I go to www.google.com, type in ``pregnancy calendar'' and read about how big this baby is and how much she weighs and what part of her is developing. At 16 weeks, her nails were all formed. At 24 weeks, she was all formed. Now at 28 weeks she is growing eyelashes and is 13.8 inches long and weighs 2 pounds 4 ounces.

All this is happening right in front of me, but out of sight, too. And I think, isn't that the way it is with love? Doesn't it always grow from the inside out?

A friend gave me a small carving of a woman holding a baby, and it's called “Grandmother - a unique love that transcends the years.'' And I look at it every day and I walk away from it singing - because I can't stop singing. ``It's very clear, my love is here to stay, not for a year, but ever and a day.''

Everything triggers a song up on cloud nine.

We've painted a room, ``Whistle While You Work,'' and bought a crib and bedding, and I dug out a baby blanket I made for Lauren when she was small and a few old books and toys. And I think how my mother did all these things for me when I was pregnant with my first child. She wallpapered a room and got a crib and blankets and a teddy bear and diapers.  

But it wasn't for me. All this time, I believed it was. But now I know that this redecorating was about more than me. It was about my mother and a baby she didn't know but whom she already loved, about creating a space in her home for a small person who had already, magically and miraculously, filled a huge space in her heart.  

Love is like that.``I'm gonna love you like nobody's loved you, come rain or come shine.'' You imagine it. You wait for it. And even before it comes you make a space for it. And you think it can't be better than the poets say.

But then it is. And the space you've created in your life and in your heart - a space you thought couldn't get any bigger - somehow expands.

Cloud nine. Who knew that it isn't solely inhabited by the young?

“In the wee small hours of the morning, while the whole wide world is fast asleep, you lie awake and you think about the boy and never even think about counting sheep.''

I think about the girl. Not my girl, but her girl, so easily imagined, so completely loved.