Full-Circle

The other day, in a moment of clarity, Mommy told me that she appreciated me taking care of her, and that she realized how much it has changed our lives.

I told her that she deserved to be taken care of. She took care of Grandpa (Pretzer) and Grandma (Griese), and now it was her turn. (She said that they weren't as bad as she is.)


It demonstrates how life comes full-circle; because she cared for them, and we learned by her example; we now care for her. (John, too, grew up helping to care for his grandparents, so his example was the same.)


I had a similar epiphany one day when Meg was little. We were at Mommy's house in Shreveport, and were looking at The Pretzers of Pomerania, a genealogy study including Mommy's relatives. I got to the part about her father that read, "John and Anna had a daughter, and named her Margaret."


I was like, Whoa! deja vu. Yes, we did. (Okay, so I'm not Anna, but I was named Ann Elise after Anna (Mommy's mom) and Elise (who raised her after Anna died when Mommy was 9 months old). John is named after both of his grandfathers, John (Johann) and Rudolph. When it came time to name Meg, we naturally named her Margaret Emma, for both of her grandmothers. Margaret means pearl (hence, Pearls of Wisdom), and Emma means universe. I always tell Meg, she's the "pearl of our universe".


So, it came to pass, again, that "John and Ann had a daughter, and named her Margaret."