Letter From a Friend

A letter from a friend:

I have a friend I went to high school with that lived right across the street from me. He was the youngest of four boys, all pretty successful. Their father was a doctor and the mother was kind of snooty. The parents lived across from my parents long after all of us kids graduated and went off to college, got married, had kids of our own. The father got cancer, and battled it for a while, but it was a losing battle, and he killed himself one night at home. His wife followed suit in an apparent pact they had made, even though she was healthy and had only a few grandchildren at the time. This was many years ago, and I remember at the time thinking I could understand that pact. But my mom told me she thought that was the most selfish thing the could have done. She had four boys and four grandchildren then, and more on the way. Look at what she left those boys to deal with and the joys she missed out on, knowing her grand kids and the joys she could have
brought to their lives as well. I thought about what my mom said when I read you were going to grow into "just a granny". I can't make your pain or depression go away from losing Jim or from getting older. I have much of the same feelings about my own life and how much time I have wasted on everything BUT what once was a promising career. And yes, it IS too late to regain the momentum I once had. There is definitely age-ism in the...world. I just wanted to tell you that my grandmother was so important to me, and my daughter loved [Husband]'s mother and father so much. She was in high school when she died and she still misses them both. She loves my mother, her maternal grandmother and my step-father so much. To her, he is her real grandfather in every way, it means nothing to her that they are related by marriage only. Since she was a baby her grandparents have meant everything to her and all the
cousins in the family. So, I can understand why it seems unforgivable for Jim to do what he did, leaving behind you and kids and grandkids. And I am begging you to please don't think that your job as a granny is unimportant.

I don't think I'll ever have grandkids, and that makes me sadder than I thought I would be. Maybe that's why I didn't want you to be gloomy about being just a granny. I'm a little jealous.

Thank you, my friend, for the realization that I must not discount the role life has handed me.