A God with a Sense of Humor – Our new lives as grandparents

A few months ago I wrote:

They also know what the church teaches about sexuality and marriage, something even their Catholic high school counterparts seem a bit shaky on.  Which is not to say that they’ll always stay on the right path, but if they veer off it will be a conscious decision and not a straying due to ignorance.

and I meant that. I meant every word of that, and I still do.

 I knew that I had taught the right things, and set good examples, and supervised as closely as I could and even pulled my older teens home and when I found out the house they were hanging out in didn’t have a parent there most of the time. Mr. Pete and I fought the good fight and short of putting electronic prisoner bracelets on their ankles that put mega volts through their bodies when it was time to come home or if they travelled out of their GPS set boundaries, I really don’t know what else we could have done.God gives teenagers free will, and for parents that is as much of a cross to bear as when they start practicing that free will as toddlers, only worse. Because you can pick up a toddler but it’s harder with an adolescent that is bigger than you. 

This summer, right after this post, I found out that I was going to become a grandmother by my 18-year-old son. I was stunned and mortified.  I wrote about that experience too.

It has been a long four months.  For the sake of our son’s privacy as well as our grandchild’s mother, I felt that I had to keep most of this private.  But today our granddaughter was born.  She is beautiful, sweet, and so pretty.  And regardless of the circumstances around her birth, she is here and she is loved and cherished by her parents,  grandparents and her aunts and uncles, grand aunts and uncles and cousins. We love her.

There have been some graces that have come from this.  Our son, who had no clue what he wanted to do after high school, has been working 40 hours a week steadily, while still being tutored in math.  He has a purpose and a focus now.  Funny how becoming a dad will do that to a person.  I certainly couldn’t find a way to make that happen, but God worked that out for him. 

Noah has been asked to be a godfather and he is taking this very seriously.

I was always a little sad that my daughters would not get to see a pregnancy and post partum period that they could remember as they moved into womanhood – and now they have had the opportunity to see pregnancy close up, and will get to help with the post partum care too.

Our parochial vicar has been advised of what has been going on and we have sought his help and guidance.  He has been a counselor and confessor – our family has been totally blessed by our church family.

And besides our granddaughter, we have a lovely young woman in our family – not a legal daughter-in-law yet, but we will support and cherish her as the baby’s mother and hope that she and our son will eventually be able to take that step.

I’m ready for the naysayers -I’m sure there will be some haters who want to tell me this is my fault for following church teaching on contraception, homeschooling, or something else. I’ve had four months to think about it so bring it on if you feel you must.

But today I’m just going to love my family as our hearts grow to include its newest little member. And I will defend and love this new little branch of our family tree wholeheartedly.