PenPenWrites

We hear the car pull up just as the 11:00 nightly news draws to a close. Uber son and his family have arrived: they've come home for a long weekend visit. Our voices are hushed as we hustle out to the car. The two-year-old is bundled from car seat to a big bed inside. The "big" kids (they are 7 and 9) are bleary eyed but ready for a snack and a look around. But they too are soon dispatched to bed as are parents and grandparents.

The morning sounds wake us earlier than we're used to: little feet running around the house; hushed yips of excitement as secret passages are revisited and closets explored. Cereal is poured into bowls. Bread is toasted. Attempts to play the piano are curtailed until "everyone" is awake. A house comes alive when there are grandchildren in it.

So does our weekend. Where we usually scramble around looking for something interesting to do and friends to see, Saturday and Sunday are now a mad jumble of museum visits, walks in the woods, football catches on the street–lucky us, we live on a dead end–and greetings by a neighbor's big, friendly dog. And endless trips to the supermarket. It is amazing how quickly we go through a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a carton of eggs. And amazing, too, how fast we–Paterfamilias and I–are absorbed into the rhythm of a young family's life: the upcoming piano recital, soccer game, play date, art class, school play. It is as though we lived in close proximity instead of in a city that's a 7-hour drive away, that we always knew in minute detail what was going on with our Grands, and that they were always an up-close and personal part of our day-to-day lives.

Then comes this reminder. It is late afternoon on Sunday. Uber son and his son are down in the street passing the football back and forth, running imaginary screens and plays. PF is too tired by now to join in. One Grand is playing the piano; another asking for a snack when our grandson bangs on the door with a frantic rap. He is yelling and crying: "Dad is hurt. Dad is hurt. Come quick." Out of the house flies my daughter-in-law. PF gets in the car and drives down the hill in case transportation is needed. I stay behind with two of the Grands to keep some semblance of calm and reassurance that all will be well. We can see from the window that their dad–my son–is sitting on a curb, hunched over in pain. Then we see him helped into PF's car and driven back up the hill to our house and helped inside. His face is devoid of color; he is shaken by pain. He needs to lie down. He wants his wife–not his mom, not his dad–to stay by his side. He thinks he may have broken his ankle.

I call an Urgent care clinic: they can see him if he's there within an hour, at which time they close for the day. Everyone wants to go with him. He wants his wife. His son, frantic that he somehow caused the accident, insists on going. It falls to PF and I to do the really hard part: Keep up the spirits and quell the fears of the two children left behind. We talk about where dad is going, why they can't go, too and then we find a box of Shrinky Dinks for the 7-year-old. She is taken up with that. We read a story to the two year old. And then we find a DVD of the Muppet Show. No one is watching exactly but it is a surprising comfort for all of us to hear the familiar chortle of Kermit the Frog and the high pitch of Miss Piggy's complaints.

The phone finally rings. It is Uber son. Sounding strong and less pained. We put him on the speaker phone. He tells us he'll be seen next at the clinic and is hopeful that the ankle is not broken. The pain is subsiding.  Fifteen minutes later the phone rings again: A voice with a very foreign accent asks, "Are you next of kin to….?" In the mini second it takes between the question and our son's laughing prank-voice, a quick-as-blink thought runs through my head: The voice is asking for parental permission for X-Rays to be taken.

How weird and without logic is that? And yet, it is a reminder to me of how deeply go those maternal roots and the role we played in our children's lives,even though those roles have been supplanted–and appropriately so–by others.