I have finally woken up to the fact that my son has sex. He is in his thirties and recently became a father to an adorable baby girl, Ada Irene. All of this is now a serious matter in the cycle of life.
When your child becomes a father, a tectonic shift occurs. There is no turning back for my son or me. He is the father of another human being. By becoming a father, he has made a kind of generational crossover, dragging other family members with him. Instantly there are new roles for everyone. His wife becomes a mother; his sister, an aunt; and my husband and I, grandparents.
I find myself filled with intense love for this child created by my son. He's talented, I'm sure, and he already has a great sense of timing. He delayed his birth for two weeks to come into the world on my birthday. And based on how he chews the edges of his book “Goodnight, Moon,” he will devour the best of literature, soaking up knowledge and wisdom whenever he can.
She laughs with joy when her name is called. As the third “Ada” in my large black family, she seems to instinctively know that her name honors two of her great-grandmothers and five generations of strong, determined women who paved the way for her.
In a small way, it also represents how far America has progressed in just one generation. Ada and I share a birthplace and birthday: Virginia, just outside the nation's capital. Ada lives with her parents about two miles from my childhood home. Her mother is white and her father is black. For the first 15 years of my life in Virginia, it would have been a crime for her parents to have been married in the state.
I like to think of little Ada as a hopeful symbol of reinvented possibilities. A trendsetter bridging an ugly history of racial divisions. In 2017, the Pew Research Center estimated that the number of multiracial or multiethnic babies born in the United States was more than one in seven, nearly triple the number in 1980 and rising. In 2021, Census Bureau places the total proportion of the mestizo population at 10%.
So Ada is at the forefront of positive change. But even her non-symbolic self is surprising. It's so amazing that I have a serious case of grandma blues.
First, there is the question of distance. I'm in Los Angeles. Ada is in Virginia. It is a cruel and unfair geographical mismatch. I blame Ada's grandfather, who years ago grabbed my heart and squeezed it with such intensity that I shamelessly followed him across the country.
But I am also to blame. I encouraged Ada's father, born and raised in California, to go east to attend college and experience life beyond the West Coast. He was supposed to come back, but he never did, and it looks like he's keeping Ada with him. I love California, but Ada's birth has taken some of the shine off the Golden State.
Still, it's about time my grandmother's jaw dropped. Time is not on my side. If I'm lucky, I might be around, and still have enough, to be able to attend Ada's high school graduation. It's a slim chance I'll be able to see her graduate from college without being wheeled around and held. But I will miss a lot of her life and I feel cheated.
Ada's birth has made me question my own decisions about when to become a father. Waiting eight years after getting married to have her father now seems like a waste of time. I wanted to have time to find myself, focus on my career, be a more mature mother. Bla bla bla. Sounds pretty self-centered now. I became an old mother and now I am an old grandmother.
If I could rewind the tape and spend eight more years with Ada instead of “finding myself,” I might have had the chance to see her start a career, attend her wedding, and make a toast.
“To my lovely, intelligent and talented granddaughter, Ada Irene. From the beginning we shared birthdays and love for the first man in your life, your father, my son and your mother's husband.
However, finding the right partner for Ada will take some time, as she is beautiful, will have high standards, and will not take anything away from anyone who wants her love. and He will want to meet his grandmother's expectations.
Despite my grandmother's sadness, it's hard to stay down around Ada. She is so present in the now. Fascinated by the lights, sounds and images of a world that she discovers little by little every day. Her innocence and joy are a reminder that while we can't stop the passage of time or solve all the problems of this turbulent world she has entered, we can choose how we want to spend the time we have.
So while I'm not sure how many birthdays Ada and I will be able to celebrate together, I'll make the most of the ones we have by blowing out our candles in unison at every opportunity. And wishing love and peace for Ada now and in the future.
Judy Belk, former president and director of the California Wellness Foundation, is working on a book of essays on growth 10 miles from the White House.
