There are cards on the mantelpiece, pretty toiletries and flowers on the table and chocolates… well, some are still left in the box but you can’t expect miracles where chocolate is concerned. Yesterday was Mother’s Day in the UK.
Ani card from Nick
After dropping my friend at the station, it was down to one son’s home then on to the other. As both invited me to an impromptu lunch, I didn’t get lunch at all…which gave me the perfect excuse for chocolate. What I did get was smiles and laughter from my granddaughter, who decided that as she can stand on her feet now, she might as well try the other way up too. She also discovered the fun of blowing raspberries. I had nothing to do with that, of course…
She looks a lot like me as a child, though with her own distinct personality and flickers of her parents and other grandparents shifting across her face from moment to moment. I look a lot like my great-grandmother… which means so does the little one. “Doesn’t it feel strange seeing your child with a child of his own now?” asked her Mum. Oddly enough, no. It just feels right. I am poised in the middle of many generations… I knew my granddaughter’s great-great-great-grandmothers and all the generations of women in between. They were part of my life as I was growing up and I learned their stories, touched their memories and carry their blood and DNA in my own.
I had sons, not daughters. There was a certain sadness in seeing that line of women broken. I did not consider, for some reason, that one day those sons would have children of their own and that I would smile at the antics of another daughter of that line. What does feel strange is that one day, if the longevity of my own great grandmothers runs in my genes as much as mischief runs in hers, my granddaughter may visit a very old lady and bring her own daughter and her newborn to see great-great-granny on Mother’s Day.
For a moment, time was erased and I felt the presence of every mother in my own line looking out through my eyes and smiling at the little beauty playing on the rug. The smiles of centuries… names going back hundreds of years… women whose faces I have known, their parents and grandparents whose names I know… and generations I will never know, stretching inevitably back as far as human history.
It is a strange and beautiful feeling, to see yourself as but a single link in the chain, knowing only the now, yet feeling the presence of the once-upon-a-time and a one-day that will stretch far beyond any trace of your memory. I wonder if, hundreds of years from now when all record of my existence has been erased, some other woman will feel my own faceless presence in her story and smile, with a love that spans generations, into the eyes of a child.
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
A strong invisible link-thank you Sue. Happy Mothers’ Day 🍀
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Thank you Susan.
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Happy Mother’s Day, Sue! Sounds as if I was a good one! 💛 Elizabeth
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It was, thank you 🙂
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What a powerfully moving piece. You speak my heart and mind. My wonders and wanders back in time and into the future. My grandmothers and great-grandmothers were dear to me. I used to think there was a broken link having lost my mother at such an early age, but there really wasn’t. She’s an integral part of my soul, my daughter’s, and my granddaughters’.
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There is a real beauty in knowing that thread is woven into every corner of our being, isn’t there?
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I loved reading every word of this piece and especially seeing that beautiful baby!
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Thanks, Barb…she’s a real bundle of mischief 🙂
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These links are so very important! Your grand daughter is gorgeous!
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It is a lovely feeling watching her carry that line of women into the future .. and thank you…yes, she is 🙂
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Oh definitely!!!!
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🙂
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Beautiful post Sue. My Mothers day was wonderful too, and I remembered my two Mam`s who are no longer here.
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I’m glad you had a good day. Adele x
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happy mother’s day, sue and what a wonderful granddaughter you have!
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She’s beautiful 🙂
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Lovely, Sue.
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Thanks Mary 🙂
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OMG she’s beautiful! Happy Mother’s Day Sue. I am lucky. My maternal great mother lived until I was in my 20’s, my great grandfather until I was 15. So I really got to know them well. I resemble her daughter, my grandmother, who lived until 94. I never knew my great grandmother on my dad’s side but his mother lived to 98, she out lived my dad.
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I knew all but one of my great grandparents, the last died just short of her hundredth birthday when I was in my late 20s, so my sons knew her briefly too, remembering her as the ‘very old grandma’.
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That’s spectacular, to know your great great grandmother! That doesn’t happen that often.
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I doubt they realise how lucky they were to do so… your own normality always just seems…normal.
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True enough.
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Love the chain idea, Sue.
Enjoy the remaining chocs!
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Remaining? 😉
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Easter is coming!
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So is a diet 😉
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A gentle one!
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Always 🙂
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I don’t have any family that I know of, only the one I have created myself. They were probably lost in the past somewhere along the way. I keep promising to try and track them down with the help of these family tree people, and your post has just made me more determined than ever.
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It is a fascinating journey looking through the old documents to find them.
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I will have to do it, before it’s too late …
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I first started for a friend… it can quickly become engrossing 🙂
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I did try it once, turned out to be a little too complicated for my brain, (but I am determined to have another go!)
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You should… it is addictive though 🙂
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Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie.
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Beautiful post and gorgeous photo’s. Lovely echoes into the past and future all at once! KL ❤
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I feel very lucky to be sitting at this point in the chain and able to see both those who have been and those who have yet to grow 🙂
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Of course they will feel and see you in those distant generations…of both girls and boys. It’s how it is meant to happen. And it’s pretty wonderful. 💕
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I think so too 🙂
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Great post. Poignant point of view.
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Thanks Don. It was a lovely moment.
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You’re welcome
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What a beautiful post Sue, from the heart – a lineage of love. Your granddaughter is adorable. I’m glad you enjoyed your day. 🙂
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My granddaughter is just a bundle of naughtiness and adventure… lovely at this age 🙂
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They sure are. 🙂
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🙂
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Very likely. Mrs Widds great,-great-grandmother’s face is plastered all over her grand-daughter’s. Photos don’t lie, even one’s that are over a hundred years old! 😀
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I wish I had the older photos still…no idea what my mother has done with them.
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What a beautiful post, Sue. It really touched my heart. And Hollie is such a cutie – I can see why you are besotted! 🙂
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She’s a real character already…and has her parents even more at her mercy 🙂
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Naturally! 🙂
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🙂
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Sue, what a beautiful story. It sounds like you had a wonderful mother’s day.
I too, had boys – 3 boys, and then went on to have 3 grandsons who are now 16 and 12 (son #1), 12 1/2 (son #2), and at long last, my granddaughter 2 1/2 (son #3). The joys my grandchildren bring is unsurpassed, but that little girl is a wonder in her own right. A belated Happy Mother’s Day. Hugs.
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I wouldn’t have changed my boys for anything, but like you, I am delighting in my granddaughter 🙂
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