Meet Elijah and Lillian with their father, John. It was a sunny day in the Midwest and the kids’ Grandmother, Alice, asked to take this picture. Truth is that she forced it to be taken.
Alice loved to see those children and she didn’t care that little Lillian was crying in this photo; she treasured it. She carried it around so often to show her friends the bottom of it was bent and torn. When she watched her son-in-law tenderly talk to Lillian as she snapped this photo she felt like an intruder prying into a private moment. Back in the day it wasn’t often that men were considered the gentle caregiver, especially when forced.
Alice didn’t see her grandchildren very often and while she hoped that would change some day soon she could never be sure, especially now that her daughter was gone. She was after all, just the mother of the mother who had died as she gave birth to her second child, a beautiful and much wanted baby girl.
Alice lived more than half a day’s trip away and was scared that the distance meant that she would see less of them, not more. Her son-in-law had preferred to handle the situation on his own, insisting that he and the children get back to a normal routine as soon as possible. That plan had served him well.
The women from John’s church had stepped in to help care for the children but he was very hands on insisting to eat dinner with them and put them to bed himself each evening. Young mothers from the church and community had nursed baby Lillian almost around the clock in those first months so that she could feel the touch of a mother during that early pain of separation, missing the mother she would never know.
John had mentioned to Alice more than once he’d be interested in moving closer to her and his parents, because let’s face it, a man raising two young children on his own? It’s unusual and John needed the support of people who knew and loved him, the children and most certainly his late wife.
Alice wouldn’t know for another year that John had devised a plan. He would work months towards planning the move that would bring him near the people that that loved the woman he did with the same energy. Alice would learn that John’s wish was to be near her with his children so they would grow up knowing their mother through the stories of the people that could tell them with veracity.
Written by Julia Roberts, Kidneys and Eyes
