Unconditional Love by Jane Isay

Author:Jane Isay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

Making the Best of a Tough Situation

On her way home from work, Joyce picks up Tim at day care. Some days her husband does that job. At home, husband and wife telegraph their day to one another while they give the five-year-old his snack and settle him down with his tablet. The adults trade off making dinner and all three sit at the table together. After dinner they go outside and play sports until everybody is ready to drop. Then Tim takes his bath and jumps into bed. This looks like a typical day in an ordinary family, except that Joyce is sixty-one, and Tim is her grandson.

Joyce has several things going for her. She’s got her energy, a husband who agrees with the plan, and her faith community. She and her husband also have a fine fallback: their therapist. When their disagreements disrupt the relationship, off they go.

Lori, their adopted daughter, had a history of mental illness, some stemming from a brain injury when she was a teenager, and some from some traumas she experienced later in life. As she grew up, Lori became obsessed with finding her birth mother. She went on the quest with her boyfriend. They disappeared for several months, and when they turned up, they were married and Lori was pregnant. After the baby arrived, the new family moved in with Joyce and her husband. All was calm for a while until the husband became violent with Lori. Exit husband. Eventually, things settled down enough for Joyce and her husband to take a short vacation, leaving Lori and the baby at home.

When they returned, there was no Lori, no baby, and no information about their whereabouts. Then they eventually learned that Lori was working as a desk clerk at a crummy motel in another state. She and her infant lived in a squatter with no running water or electricity. When Lori discovered spiders crawling over the child, she drove home and dropped him off with his grandparents. Tim, now five, has been with Joyce and her husband ever since.

Joyce loves that little boy, who is adorable, if a little headstrong. She’s not sure if his behavior is normal, because she raised only girls. And she has lingering worries about his mental health, considering his volatile mother and her problems. So far, so good, but there are issues. They have to do with Joyce’s daughter.

Mother and daughter are estranged. Like many custodial grandmothers, Joyce is furious at her daughter and protective of her grandson. She doesn’t want him to be around his mother. She worries that he won’t know where he belongs. He’s not old enough to understand why he doesn’t live with Mommy. “When I was in your tummy, Grandma,” he begins. She corrects him. “You were in your mother’s tummy.” “Did I have my trucks there?”

Her husband disagrees. He has more patience for Lori, and he thinks Tim should know his mother. Over Joyce’s objections, he takes Tim to visit his mother several Sundays a month.

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