Milena Moser is happy that she became a grandmother: Where does love come from?

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I look expectantly at the pharmacist who sells me a children’s temperature measuring device. Why doesn’t she say anything? She probably sees that I’m too old to have my own child. Then I just say: “I’m a grandmother!” I beam at her.

This is what everyone who meets me on the way hears now. Whether they want it or not. Reactions range from polite feigned interest to wild enthusiasm. Depending on whether the people you’re talking to already belong to this global club or not – until recently, I couldn’t tell one photo of a grandson from another. But now everything is different.

“You’ll see,” predicted the grandmothers around me, good friends, women I didn’t know very well, sometimes even complete strangers who overheard part of the conversation and enthusiastically interrupted: “You’ll be a grandmother! Oh, how sweet. I’m telling you… you’ll see…!” Something connects us, something unique and at the same time very everyday.

When my son called me, “I have something to tell you,” I felt uneasy at first. In those split seconds of his artistic break, every conceivable scenario except this one flashed through my head. (The question of why I automatically assume the worst at such moments, I will leave unanswered for now. I still have to think about this.) When I realized what he was telling me, I screamed so loudly that Victor detained me in the workshop. The whine of a circular saw could be heard below. When he ran up the stairs, I cried too.

And from that moment on, this little creature was with me, in my thoughts. Again and again, in difficult and beautiful moments, this new awareness flashed: There is someone whom I do not yet know and whom I already love so much. And when I was finally allowed to hold him in my arms, that feeling came again: I already know you. I see in you my son, your mother, your great-grandmother. And yet you are unique. Completely new and at the same time familiar.

Memories appear and disappear again of my own pregnancies and births. How young I was then, how unprepared, how little knowledge I had. Memories of my mother, who was younger than me when she became a grandmother and told everyone about it. Being a grandmother brought out sides of her that I didn’t know. Softer and more generous sides. I’ve heard this from others too: how much easier it is to be a grandmother than a mother. Perhaps because we are older. To learn more. But also because this love is new, different from the love for one’s own children. No less intense, but somehow more relaxed. Safer. Of course, this could simply be because it is no longer associated with acute sleep deprivation…

It’s as if we suddenly have access to a secret treasure we didn’t even know we had. Where does this love come from, where was it all these years ago, where was it hiding? And how much is left?

“Good luck,” says the young pharmacist. As if anyone could be happier.

Source: Blick