Sucker Punch Grandma

"And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know / 
My weakness I feel I must finally show" (Mumford & Sons)

I realized today that it has been over four months since my last post.  
FOUR MONTHS PEOPLE!! My immediate reaction to this immediate realization?  Wow, time sure flies when you are having fun...ctioning issues.  Some, including my own beaky family, have inquired as to the prolonged lapse and have even (ever so gently) voiced if Mama Finch updates have permanently flown the coop.  Don’t you ruffle your pretty little feathers my dears, the Finch shall rise again.

My head has been buried in the proverbial sand since June as our family has been continually dealt some fairly harsh blows, one right after the other it seems.  Sucker punches if you will.  One-two hits that have forced the very breath from every idealistic notion we ever believed to be true.  I could not bring myself to minimize what was happening with a few frivolous banterings written here. The situations deserved better than that.  I needed time to pull myself up into the light of day, compute the happenings, and process the fallout.

And so here we are.  

Round one

One month ago today I became a grandmother for the very first time. A beautiful healthy little girl was born to my oldest son and his girlfriend on October 1 and for an entire magnificent 48-hour period I could lay claim to that title and hold her in my arms.   However joyful I was at her birth the moment was bittersweet because I knew my time with her was limited.

My son and his girl had several months ago decided that, due to reasons that are still not entirely clear to us, adoption would be the best option for their situation.  No amount of reasoning, discussion, offer of help or heated debate was going to change their minds and as both are adults there was nothing we could do. They had been working through a reputable local adoption home/agency and they were almost immediately matched with a wonderful, stable and loving Christian couple who, looking back now at how events unfolded, seemed truly meant to be.


They were the perfect parents for her and she was the perfect baby for them.  On October 3, 2012 at 2:30 PM, the mandatory 48 hour waiting period was up, decisions were confirmed, papers were signed and someone else legally became her grandmother. The finality of it all broke my heart.  As quick as she came to us, she was gone.  Only emptiness remained where she had already staked her claim.  As selfish as it may sound, their glorious gain was our gut-wrenching loss and somehow it just didn't seem fair.


The grief I feel over her is palpable and permeating.  I have watched my mother take her last breath and my father forget who I am, so great loss is nothing new to me, but this time it feels different; it is different.  Those losses, difficult as they were, followed an expected and logical pattern. This one does not.  This one makes no sense.  My heart really is stumbling over things that I don't understand.

I realize the pain of losing her will fade with time and there will be other grandchildren, but there will never be another her.  Her entrance into our world was a knockout punch that I was not ready for.  My weakness I feel I must finally show.