The whole day felt to be an exercise in frustration and in one of its more exasperating moments came the very best part of my day.

8:30 pm  found me trying to put to bed my three granddaughters, aged four, six and nine. My frayed nerves were about to get the better of me. The four year old, Rosie,  was laying down with me and finding every excuse to not fall asleep. Holly and K Bear were in Holly’s room listening to a book on the IPod, which is Holly’s favorite method of passing into dreamland. This is, however, not K Bear’s cup of tea at bedtime.  She wants darkness and silence.  K Bear is company, uprooted from her nightly routines with a mama who had a surgical procedure that day.  Holly needed to sacrifice, not something she does graciously as a rule.  In fact, I forced her IPod away from her amid screams and a sudden terrible tummy ache. 

I lay down with the two girls, my hand on Holly’s stomach trying to Reiki away a stomach ache caused from not getting her way. I could hear Rosie had slipped out of bed and was having an animated conversation with her papa. K Bear began complaining about the noise and that her sister had found release from bedhood bondage.  My first reaction was to snap K Bear’s head off but the very first words quickly died in my throat as I felt her stiffen and begin to cry.  I felt what it must feel like to not be home at bedtime, powerless, routines destroyed and mama not well, with her grandmother from hell getting ready to tear into her.

In that moment, I transitioned from total frustration into feeling the interconnected web of generations, knowing they connect me to the future and I connect them to the past.  Suddenly the day’s annoyances contained the sublime, the best of the best.