Trying to Accept

Thursday was my grandson's first birthday. I'd always though that being a grandparent would be a happy, fulfilling time of my life. I found out a year ago that parental love is just as strong when you become a grandparent, and I also found out that a monstrous amount of heartache can go along with it, and none of it is under your control. Jonathan is a beautiful, well-behaved child who is at the stage where he is exploring and getting into things now that he can walk. He's at the age when grandparents want to interact and be involved in their grandchild's life. Unfortunately for us that isn't going to happen as frequently as we'd like. We were invited to his birthday party and spent some time with him there, but the party took place at his mother's home, which just so happens to be her parents home, who are the ones who took offense at Nathan's try to take his girlfriend to court to get visitation rights and who accused my wife and I of trying to take the baby because we paid his lawyer's fee. Needless to say, we weren't made to feel very welcome, and it's doubtful that we'll start seeing Jonathan more frequently than his every-other-month visits. It really breaks our hearts because we don't want to become strangers to him, which is how it seemed when they came on Easter for the first time in almost two months. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if things change, and if not we'll have to accept things the way they are now as being the norm.