Is our longing more altruistic, a hope for our children to know the deep joy that comes from being a parent? In many ways, grandbaby lust is a lot like the baby lust of younger women, with the same uncertainties of fertility, desire and commitment. She was just trying to connect, to state an emotional truth that’s a cliché precisely because it’s so universal. She was an old, lonely lady with a terrifying blunting of her once-sharp intellect, and she just wanted to talk. And maybe she was also trying to do what mothers and grandmothers do: prepare us for her absence.

Source: New York Times December 27, 2018 16:05 UTC