Review: Eye of My Heart

When I read Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions, about the crazy, primal experience of becoming a mother, I hadn't yet had children. And so I thought she was a crazy, primal person who had written a pretty interesting book.

And then I had a child myself and discovered that I, too, can be crazy and primal.

Eye of My Heart is, I think, the same kind of book. It is a collection of essays about being a grandmother. Each is highly individual, but patterns emerge: the process of falling in love with a grandchild; the need to navigate new relationships with one's children, who are suddenly not only one's children, but the gatekeepers of this new, intense relationship. It's truthful, and anything but sugar-coated.

Many of the essays also provide intimate, detailed looks at particular situations. I was touched by Sallie Tisdale's "How Things Happen," in which explores her experience as a grandmother while she struggles with choices her child is making. Another piece in the book, Rona Maynard's "Facebook Grandma" (which you can read as an excerpt right here on More.ca) really spoke to me on the level of nonconformity: The unwillingness to go through a universal experience without making it one's own.

But even as I read the book, over a long holiday weekend, sitting on a couch while my son played with my mother-in-law, I was aware that I was probably missing out on some of the truth of these essays, just because I'm not there yet myself.

But here's the real beauty of the book: now I'm looking forward to it.

Some contributor include: Judith Viorst, Mary Pipher, Elizabeth Berg, Beverly Donofrio, Bharati Mukherjee, Susan Griffin, and Susan Shreve. Edited by Barbara Graham, and published by Harper.

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