Today is my mother's birthday. I went back to check and it turns out I wrote about her two years ago. I guess dying does not preclude a child's longing.

But this time it is different. This summer my daughter became a mom, and I can cradle Olympia's softly breathing body in the crook of my arm. She knows nothing of her great grandmother, and will probably feel no connection to her. Still I can be the ribbon between them. One day I will tell her about the renegade who was brave enough to push for a college education back when such things were less of a right and more of a dessert. My mother was a smart woman, at least when mania did not hijack her brain. Come to think of it, her manipulations were pretty crafty too. 

But I loved her. 

It is my blessing to live close enough to my granddaughter to show up on a Monday morning, and leave before rush hour. My own mother never lived closer than a thousand miles when I birthed my babies. At least until she moved in with us and I was gifted with miraculous twins. But by then she was too tired to hold one baby much less two and mostly declined my invitations to feel their sweetness under her chin. I never understood how she could resist. 

My mother did not ever climb on a plane to come cook supper for me after a baby arrived. Not even once, and I kept having them. For some reason she could not find words for, the pull to be with her grandchild did not overpower her will to stay away. 

The ache over that lost relationship has lessened over time. Her absence fueled my intention to love each infant twice as much. As if adoration would submit to a scale of any sort. But she didn't get to see their eyes flutter closed, or the spark when they opened again. There is no going back, I suppose. What's gone is gone.

All of us have people who passed just out of reach, even if we showed up at the same celebrations. Being close is not a given, and the effort to be so can feel more frightening than giving up before we begin.