It is as grandmothers that our mothers come into the fullness of their grace.

Morley suggests that a woman’s qualities as a mother—patience, tenderness, steadiness, and humor—often reach their richest expression when she becomes a grandmother. With the pressures of daily childrearing past, she can offer affection and wisdom with fewer anxieties and less authority to enforce, allowing “grace” to appear in a fuller, more relaxed form. The line also reframes aging as moral and emotional ripening rather than decline: later life can reveal a person’s best self. Implicitly, it honors intergenerational continuity, where love and care are renewed and deepened through grandchildren.