Everlasting Love……

My 17 year old granddaughter “loves” my blog. She messaged me from Facebook and I am so touched.

I was present at her birth. The tension and angst of her mother’s pregnancy fell away as I spent the first day of Kyra Rose’s life with my daughter. New grandchild euphoria consumed me. I found out the truth behind the “If I had only known how wonderful grandchildren were, I would have had them first” crowd.

For the next two years she and her mother and then her sister lived in our home. She and Alice were shiny bright stars during what was otherwise a dark time in my journey.

Her grandfather and I had her with us a lot as her mother finished up her high school credits at the alternative high school, attended the local college and worked a part time job. The three of us shared child care duties as we were working full time and I was taking nine hours a semester at the same local college.

Kyra was old enough and sensitive enough to feel the tension surrounding the breakup of an almost 25 year marriage. One day, shortly after her grandfather was back in the house after a one month separation, we had Kyra in our bedroom watching TV with us while her mother was with Alice. In her cute little pajamas, fresh from her bath, she was the center of our attention. Kyra leaned over and took her grandfather’s hand placing it over mine. She sat looking at us and holding our hands. We were both overcome with the longing in her gaze and knew exactly what she wanted. Filled with bittersweet regret we were both unsure of how we would ever find our way back together, even for her.

Five months later I found Kyra standing in her grandfather’s side of the closet surrounded by what few clothes he had left hanging. She was keening his name. I had read about keening with grief and was unprepared for the reality of the emotions the words conveyed. There was such a depth of longing for what she could not ever have again in the sounds she made, as she held on to his clothes and called his name. We cried together and I held her in my arms on the floor of the closet for a very long time.

Kyra has an indomitable spirit. She has been faced with unimaginable loss several times in her life and finds a way through. Like others in her gene pool she embraces her journey with an understanding of the vagaries in life and love.

Love finds a way and Kyra Rose has a whole lot of love in her life……………

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved