Hi Anne,

It was at a wedding that we met, a bittersweet wedding. The wedding was joyous - your son, Mark, and my daughter, Kyra. But it was also sad because just six weeks before, my wife, Kyra’s mom, had suddenly died. The wedding followed a traditional Quaker Meeting where all the attendees could speak. I remember you getting up and admonishing your son to be good to his wonderful bride. Although that probably was not the last time you fulfilled your motherly role in admonishing your son, I beamed because you called my daughter wonderful.

Even though we share grandchildren, Ezra and Lillian, our paths rarely crossed. A number of years ago we met in Berkeley where Mark and Kyra were graduate students. And then again in Portland, just a couple of short weeks before you died. You had just moved there. We talked. You seemed healthy. It was a shock when Kyra’s voice on my answering machine told me that you had died. I had to listen to it a number of times before the news sunk in.

I never knew my grandparents and what I had missed by not knowing them. Being now in the grandparent stage of my life, I have become aware of how important the role is.

On my last visit to Portland, I watched you grand-mothering Ezra and Lillian. You bonded with them. Ezra loved being with you, playing board games, sharing books, talking, just being together. Lillian sees you as having moved to heaven where she can come and visit you.

Ezra and Lillian have lost both grandmothers, one they never knew and you who respected, loved and valued them. It is my goal that Lillian and Ezra will see in me the grand-parenting qualities they saw in you.


I write this with sorrow,


Your outlaw (Do we have a word for the parents of a married couple?),


Bill
Otherwise known as Opa
April 2016