December 2022

Rose awoke to an inhuman keening sound and knew what was going on: Tyler was having a bad dream. She jumped from her bed and dashed into his room, where she found him sitting in bed, rocking back and forth and wailing. She went to him and held him close.

"It's all right, Tyler," she said to him in a soothing voice. "It's just a dream. That's all."

Tyler's eyes flew open. He looked disoriented. "Mom?"

"I'm right here, Tyler." She continued to pat and comfort him. "Everything's OK. I love you."

"Love," Tyler repeated.

"Yes, I love you very much."

"Mom love Tyler."

"That's right. Try to go back to sleep now." She helped him lie back down and sat beside him rubbing his back until she heard him snoring.

The next day, she went on Facebook and found a group called 'Grieving No Grandkids.' She applied to join it and was accepted. Right away, she went through the posts to see what was there.

"My husband and I have been married for forty-two years," wrote a woman named Debbie. "We live in a beautiful house by the water. We take several vacations a year. Our son is a surgeon, and our daughter is an attorney. The only thing missing in our lives is grandchildren! Neither of our children has any interest in finding a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, and it breaks my heart to think I may never have a sweet little grandbaby to cuddle."

Rose wrote back to her in the 'comments' section. "You should be grateful for all the things you do have. A lot of people would give anything to be in your place."

"I'm so jealous!" wrote a woman named Susan. "My best friend from high school and I were in the same boat for so many years. Neither of our daughters wanted children. Now suddenly, my best friend's daughter has met Mr. Wonderful and wanted to have his kids. Her own eggs were nonviable, so she used donor eggs and her husband's sperm to have twins! I'm trying to be happy for my best friend, but it's so hard!"

"I don't think you have any reason to be jealous," Rose wrote back to her. "Those twins aren't really her grandkids. They don't have any of her genes."

Several days later, Rose received a notice from the administrator of 'Grieving No Grandkids' that her comment to Debbie had been deleted because it violated one of their rules, which was "No telling another member how she 'should' feel.'

A few days before Christmas, Rose received a telephone call from her older sister, Paula.

"Robin and I would like to invite you and Tyler to our house for Christmas," said Paula. "I know Noah and Lacy are going to Lacy's parents' house, and I hate the thought of the two of you having to spend Christmas day alone."

"Thank you very much," said Rose. "We'd love to come." She knew Paula's daughters would all be there with their children, but she was determined not to let that spoil her holiday spirit.

She made green bean casserole and baked a lovely coconut cake to share. She helped Tyler to dress in his nicest clothes and comb his hair. Then she drove to Robin and Paula's house.

"Merry Christmas, Aunt Rose," Amber's twelve-year-old daughter, Savannah, greeted her at the door.

"Merry Christmas to you, too!" Rose replied.

She took the green bean casserole and the cake to the table and then sat on the sofa beside Jade and her five-year-old son, Chase. Tyler sat down beside her. He became excited and began to rock back and forth.

"Weirdo," Chase muttered.

"That isn't a nice thing to say at all," said Jade. "Apologize to your cousin right away!"

"Sorry, Tyler," said Chase. Tyler continued to rock, oblivious to his words.

"Dinner's ready!" Paula announced. Rose and Tyler joined the others at the table.

"Crystal and I have an announcement to make," said Crystal's husband, Brett. The family stopped eating and looked at Crystal expectantly.

"I'm pregnant!" Crystal said with a big grin. Everyone cheered except Rose.

"Our fifth grandchild!" said Paula.

"When are you due?" asked Amber.

"June seventeenth," said Crystal. "We've known for a couple of weeks, but we wanted to wait and surprise everybody."

"Well, it sure is a happy surprise!" said Paula.

After dinner, all the kids opened their Christmas presents. There were presents for Tyler too, of course: mostly games to play on his XBox. He got excited and started rocking and grunting again. Rose tried several times to calm him down but had minimal success. She was relieved when it was finally time to go home.

That night, she posted on 'Grieving No Grandkids': "Just celebrated Christmas with my sister and her family. During dinner, her youngest daughter announced her pregnancy. This will be her fifth grandchild! And I don't even have one!"

She knew the other ladies would sympathize, and she looked forward to their comments.

"What I can't understand, is why you put so much emphasis on genes and heredity." Shelly sat her phone beside her and picked up her laptop.

"I think it goes back to my grandmother's funeral." Rose made herself more comfortable on the sofa. "I was sixteen when she died. I remember talking about it later with Paula. 'I can't imagine what it would be like to be gone, I mean, to not exist anymore,' I said. 'She isn't really gone,' Paula told me. 'A part of her lives on in Dad and Uncle Paul, and in us and our cousins. We all have her genes.' Ever since then, it's been important to me to me to pass on my genes, so part of me can live on after I die."

"Let's talk about that." Shelly scribbled some notes. "Why are you so afraid of death and nonexistence?"

"Well - because there's no objective proof of life after death," Rose replied. "I mean, I was raised in the Assembly of God church, and they did everything they could to 'terrify' me into the kingdom. When I got older and started to think for myself, I told myself, you know, there's no way to know any of this for sure. You just have to take it by faith. Maybe my parents' faith is strong enough, but I guess mine isn't. I mean, I'm not an atheist or anything. I don't think I could ever go that far."

"Hmm. It sounds like your religious background was more fear-based and not as much focused on love. Have you ever explored any other faiths besides the one you were born into?"

Rose shrugged. "I was going to a Unitarian Universalist church for awhile, but my parents gave me such a hard time about it that I finally gave it up. I don't really go anywhere now. My Mom keeps bugging me to go back to her church, but I could never go back there."

"Everyone has their own spiritual journey. Just because yours is different from your family's doesn't mean it's wrong. Another thing to think about, is that perhaps there are other ways of 'living on' after death besides just passing on your genes. Have you ever thought about doing something definite to make the world a better place? That could be your legacy."

"I wouldn't know where to start," said Rose.

"Just take small, baby steps," said Shelly. "Maybe you could try volunteering in a soup kitchen or caring for homeless dogs at a shelter."

"I have always loved animals, especially dogs."

"Well, there you go, then. It won't solve all your problems, but it will give you something positive to focus on."

Rose smiled. "Maybe I'll try that."

"I volunteered at the doggy bathe-in at the Humane Society yesterday," Rose told her best friend, Hope. It was Sunday afternoon, and the two women were sitting at Rose's kitchen table, drinking coffee.

Hope took another sip of coffee. "Wow! So how'd you like it?"

"It was fun! A lot of work, though." Rose wiped her mouth with a napkin. "There was this one little shih tzu with the saddest eyes. I'm thinking of adopting him."

"Go for it," said Hope. "I always thought you'd be good with dogs."

"My therapist, Shelly, suggested it." Rose drained her cup. "She thought if I did something significant, it would make me feel better about not having grandkids."

"Rocky and Ashley both live out of town, so I mostly only see mine on the holidays, anyway." Hope's son Rocky had two daughters and a son, and her daughter Ashley had two sons.

Rose sighed. "That's sure better than nothing at all."

"Well, maybe if you adopt this dog, you'll be too busy to feel sad about it."

Rose smiled. "That's what I'm hoping will happen."