Blooming like a strong tree.

I loved this scene in Sarah's Quilt, which I finished a while ago. The protagonist Sarah, a grandmother, is visiting her grown daughter April at home.

A lady in blue cried out, "Mama!" April came running, and I took that girl in my arms. Oh, she felt so good. Such pretty hair. So plump and real and warm. She kissed my cheeks and clung to me, and took away my breath. I breathed in the smell of her, the scent of lilac water in her hair. My three grandchildren waited in a row on the steps. ...

It hurt ... to see the babies. It was different from having my sons tease me that I was old, or for me to use my age as an excuse for some kind of laziness. Those times amounted to no more than squalling with no proof. This here was proof with no sound, proof that seeped into the small places in my heart, where I never allowed any nonsense. The place inside that I thought of as me had just been informed its owner was old. At home, when I was busy, there were days and weeks that flew by and I didn't give time so much as a nod. I remembered Udell's words about not letting a moment go by, and suddenly my eyes filled with tears.

"Mother!" April said. She took the little girls from me and set them back on the floor, then leaned onto my lap and put her cheek against mine. It was such an odd thing for her to do. How could I explain to a beautiful lady in a silk dress that when I picked up her baby girl, I felt that lady's long-ago chubby shape in my arms, smelled her sunshine-touched hair? That years and years of tiny memories flitted past my heart like a flock of birds spinning on invisible air? It was the smell of the little girls, slightly wet, somewhat soapy, the smell of porridge supper, and the taste of kissed-away tears. Here in my arms were the best parts of life, going on, blooming like a strong tree.

"Grandmother?" said Vallary, looking into my face. "Don't be sad. Would you like to see my toy horsey?"

The stinger of my age had been removed by a single word from a little boy with tousled yellow hair. I smiled. "Surely I would," I said.

I never say that I want to freeze time. I honestly have not felt that way. Every phase my kids move into, I love even more than the previous one. Will I feel the same when they are teenagers, possibly not. And I think it would be fun to be able to rewind just for a few moments and remember how it was at whatever time. But I would never want to stay back there.

I wonder if my stance on that will change as life gets more complicated and my kids get bigger. And sometimes, I wonder if I should pinch myself and find out if I'm dreaming, because the frustration and tears and insanity of living with two tiny people who don't like, for instance, to be told "no," is never enough to really put a blight on living with two tiny people who want to hug me almost all the time.