Let’s crow, let’s brag, let’s be grandparents. It’s a rule.
Me first.
I just got back from meeting my first great-grandson, and now my world is even more complete than it was when his mama was born. She was my first grandchild. I’m not going to pull out the pictures, but let me just say if he was in a state fair he’d win a blue ribbon.
Next, my two forever friends since seventh grade had grandchildren graduations.
Debbie Rollins Morrow’s first grandchild, Rollins Jenkins, graduated from high school. Amy Lambert Clark’s first grandchild, Will Lambert, graduated from Ole Miss with a bachelor’s in Pharmaceutical Science. He’s gearing up for three more hard years to get that doctorate, then Jenkins Hill will have some fireworks for sure.
Out on Shoestring Road, Donna and the Buford folks celebrate several graduates in a whirl of activities in different states. Lawyers and accountants and just beautiful grandchildren with beautiful voices and bright futures are celebrated.
I can sit in my chair and watch videos of these talented Sumner children I love who are doing all things beautiful. I’m right there with them like another grandmother.
They get up in front of their entire school and sing solos, they get on stage and act in plays. They have curls in their hair that go flying when they soar in gymnastics, practicing to gain air and flip in flight, landing strong.
They graduate from kindergarten and go into first grade and we’re just born, it seems.
They go to proms wearing the perfect dress that would make any grandmother proud of the lady she has become.
The fathers taking the daughters to cotillions with white gloves and kitten heels; dads suited and tied to a tee.
I’m watching these events unfold. I’m so proud when a Cub Scout becomes a Boy Scout, and wait for the Eagle Scout.
This is our tribe of folks; the young men who hold open doors for me at gas stations saying “yes, ma’am.” The young man helping his daddy cook ribs on the highway is such a handsome child; his daddy a proud Army veteran. I don’t know his mama or grandmother, but she has sure raised a fine bunch right there.
That’s the reward in getting older for me. My grands live far away, so everybody’s grand is mine. They just don’t know it.
I just look at all the posts on social media and feel like I’m flipping through a family photo album.
