There’s a bun in the oven. Not in mine, but my younger daughter’s. It’s her second child, and my third grandchild, growing in her belly, cells dividing, heart beating, forming in that miraculous way we do.

I was a mother at 19, and a grandmother at 38. For a long time I was in denial of that latter fact. It still amazes me that I am the grandmother of a teenager, when so many of my peers are still raising kids of their own.

But I am glad, now, that I procreated so young. And glad that my daughters have gone on to raise healthy beautiful boys, while they are still young. And now another unique and loved and cherished human being is doing his/her thing in the safe cave of Rhea’s womb. Amazing.

Tonight my dad wondered yet again why I choose to live on the other side of the world, when ALL of my family is far away. I don’t have a good answer for that, beyond “this feels like my right place”. But when Rhea tells me she wants me to come back now, and stay for a year, I hear her.

I just can’t go yet. I still belong here. No idea why, but I do.

But this song still makes me cry.