“Isn’t it amazing a man like me can feel this way…” – James Taylor
from Your Smiling Face
OK, I expected to love my granddaughter. I just didn’t
expect this. I have no idea if other Grands have this experience. It feels singular
to me. And I am at a loss to explain it.
Little Tess is beautiful and whip smart. She doesn’t
complain unless something is actually wrong. She has a strong sense of personal
space and will not suffer over-pushy strangers gladly. She really seems to
enjoy other children. She loves books and playing catch… (Ok, I roll the ball
to her, but she really has an arm.) She snuggles so sweetly when she falls
asleep for a nap or takes a bottle. But in the end, I think it is that smile
that has me hooked…and the way she sticks her tongue out at me when we first
see each other…always our special greeting since an hour after she was born.
Still, for all that, I remain at a loss to explain the
unbridled joy she has brought into my life. I loved my kids; I still do. I gave
them bottles; I still do…well, beer bottles now, but still... We had great fun
playing; howling with laughter together, reading books (or listening to them
recite them to me, in their entirety, from memory, before they could read… to
my complete amazement). I am sure I have forgotten a lot about those early days,
so maybe I have only forgotten, but it doesn’t feel that way today. And to be
clear, I don’t believe I love Tess more than I loved them then or love them
now.
I find myself wondering if it is age. I read that there is a
French proverb that runs “Life is half spent before one knows what life is.”
Whatever else you may want to say, it is clear that perspective changes with
age. Is it the return to a vital joy after having been so long out of the
saddle (of infant care)? Is it the fact she is ours; the daughter of my own son
and daughter in law (or “my daughter” as I normally think of her)? Is it just
that she is so darn cute?
It suffices to say I simply don’t know why, but although I
may be clueless about why, I can at least speak to how I feel. To be honest,
and at the risk of sounding weird, I have got to say a smile from Tess feels
sort of like baptism. For those unfamiliar with the idea, it is complex. The concept
of baptism in the circles I came from has a lot to do with turning toward life
and being washed clean of everything in one’s past that was contrary to that…and
all the guilt that went with it. So setting aside the issue of whether you buy
that sort of thing in magical terms, I have got to say, what happens inside
when Tess gives me one of those precious smiles feels completely magical. I
think that somehow being seen by new, pure, trusting, loving eyes allows me,
for moments, to see myself that way. And the residual effect is a growing sense
that some deep closed place inside has been opened or perhaps re-opened. I
guess what I am saying is that being with Tess is not just wonderful in the
moment. It seems something inside me is changing.
Out of an abundance of caution, let me say this: My happiness
is absolutely not Tess’s responsibility. Nor for that matter, am I entitled to use
her for my aggrandizement. All that kind of thing goes down the wrong roads. Still,
I find myself feeling changed…and shocked by it; rich beyond measure. I am lucky
in the extreme. Isn’t it amazing a man like me can feel this way?
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