Visiting the Spanish familia

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Maria and Merari are in there chatting and chattering. I think Spanish is a beautiful language, even the grammar (why shouldn’t there be two past tenses, and two words for to be, and why shouldn’t the adjectives mostly come after the noun?) but it does have a staccato rhythm, especially when I can only catch every third word.

 

Why am I hearing them? Because I am in Greensboro for Merari's baby shower. The AirBnB I reserved was a problem; long story.  So I am staying with my son's in-laws. 

 

I suspect I will be the only pair of blue eyes and freckled face there. I call myself a Viking because the DNA tests claims I am 48% Scandinavian. The only excuse for that is the Nordic invaders of Scotland from 800-1000. How strange! And how, really, inconsequential. My life has absolutely nothing to do with those barbarians. (I am reading The Last Kingdom and learning a lot about them). 

 

Maria, I know, is happy to have her six and a half months pregnant daughter here. She is happy, I can tell. So is my daughter-in-law. They are cooking, well, Merari is chopping, Maria is calling the culinary shots.

 

I enjoy this, but it reminds me of times with my mom. 

 

I wish I had a day with my mother! It has been nine years since she breathed her last. What would she think of my becoming a grandmother now? She enjoyed her four grandchildren, in her way, each differently. She spoiled my son, in her way. She would always think of him as very young, a child. Perhaps that is the way for all of us parents. 


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