Mama?

Last week Danny’s great-grandmother passed away in Germany. We are very glad that we were able to take Danny to visit his great-grandparents last fall—he was only 4 months old then, but he so charmed them, and we like to think that he brought some sunshine to what had already become a long battle with cancer.

We are glad that she is finally in peace now. And that as sad as her death has been for her husband of 60+ years, in reality his life will now become less complicated and stressful. Sounds so logical right? I'm sure it doesn't feel less complicated nor stressful now though as he says goodbye to his beloved wife. He visited her practically every single day in the nursing home she entered over a year ago—and it wasn’t always easy to do so. She was Susanne’s paternal grandmother, so Su will join her father and other family members in Germany this week to pay her respects. Danny and I will take her out the airport this afternoon.

We both have a jumble of feelings about the days ahead. Danny will stay here with me, so it’s going to be hard for Su to be apart from him. She has never been apart from him.

I’ve encouraged her to relax and try to enjoy this “time off”, but I know she’d rather not leave us. Our original thought was that she’d take Danny with her since her dad would be able to help on the flights, but as it turned out, her grandfather would prefer that we bring the baby at another time—when things are not so sad. I completely respect his decision. He’s got to mourn the way he needs to. Having a baby there could have added a bit of energy and life, but again, this time is about him and his grief.

As for me, I’m definitely not myself (and she hasn’t even flown out yet!). I don’t really know what it’s like any more to live my life without Susanne. She’s never gone away before, so this is all new terrain for me. So I’m going to miss her terribly, and also of course be in charge of Danny. It’s hard to tell how he’ll respond to her absence. He loves her so much, and literally lights up at the sight of her or the sound of her voice. (Okay, figuratively, but you know what I mean!)

I’m not sure at a year how he’ll process this. As they say, I guess we’ll just have to see. I’m pretty confident in my ability to take care of all the logistics and to shower our boy with lots of love, but it won’t be the same. How could it? I’m just going to say now, that come next weekend, there will be 3 very, very happy people at the airport. Me, Susanne and the little short guy squawking his little head off! ;-)