As the world turns
In the local Spanish culture there is a word for two women whose children are married and share grandchildren-comadre (spelling unknown).
My older daughter Melissa married Alex Cserhat in 1996. His mother, Jennifer Ryan, lives in Taos and has shared with me the joys of seeing two baby boys grow up and become handsome (and athletic and gifted) young men. Ah, a gramma could go on.
So Jennifer Ryan and I are comadres. We have journeyed down the decades with a connection and a mutual adoration of our grandsons. Our genes are somehow mingled together (in unknown proportions) in these children who inherited some powerful characteristics and hopefully few of our flaws.
Jennifer has always loved and appreciated my daughter Melissa. She understood immediately what a terrific partner she would be for her son Alex. On her side, she has been an ally and a support system for their family.
Not that Jennifer is a simple person. She was born in Britain in a Manor covered in wisteria… she grew up in the cliché upper class English style: nannies, boarding school and lots of dogs and horses. Her mother was a bounder (an peculiar English term that means someone who deserts her family and children). This, in spite, of her privileged background left her emotionally a wounded two year old.
And she was an adventurer, a rascal, a brilliant researcher, a musicologist, an alcoholic, an accomplished writer, a wit and a bitch. She was…. she was.
She is still alive, but very diminished. At 86 years of time, she is just lying in her bed, hardly knowing us …she has lost her sharp tongue and her curiosity and her need to know and her need to comment on the world.
Ah, Jennifer… oh Jen o fur (as they say in merry old England) … I am sorry to see you in such circumstances.
Love.
Your comadre Claire