Grandparent Love

A friend of mine recently sent me an email announcement of her new grandson's birth. In response, I tried to include, along with my congratulations, the magic of this new relationship that she is about to experience. Words simply fall short.

I recently spent a week with my own grandsons, Caden, almost five, and Troy, almost two, this past month and , because I am a long-distance grandma, the memories we made will have to last me several months until I can see them again. This fact probably makes me more conscious of each experience as time passes so swiftly away.

Each time I bury my nose in Troy's chubby neck rolls, or tuck Caden in for a nap after reading him a story or two, I catalog the experience and file it away, so that, when I am back in Michigan, with only pictures and videos of them for company, I can call out the sweetness and re-experience the connection across the miles.

Being a grandparent is just a kind of pure love that brings out the best in us, I think. When I see Rick cradle Troy so lovingly, his weathered cheek against Troy's smooth one, I fall in love with both of them all over again. When Caden says to me, "Hey Nanoo, let's play Go Fish or let's play in the sandbox or let's shoot baskets", I am ready no matter what he wants to do. It does not matter if we blast away at robots on his Chicken Little Game, or if we share oatmeal for breakfast. We can build with Lincoln Logs or pretend fight with plastic dinosaur puppets. We can mix the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies or practice his batting with his Chicago Cubs bat and ball. We can take a walk or fight with Star Wars Light Sabers or snuggle on the bed and share his new favorite video: Pinocchio. We can make up silly rhymes or invent words with his refrigerator magnet alphabet or chat while he takes a bath. What we do is irrelevant-but when his eyes twinkle up at me and he says "I LOVE you, Nanoo" my heart is filled with happiness.

Troy took a little bit of time to get to know Rick and me as we had not seen him for several months. But now his cheery smile will flash our way and he will sidle over and lift his chubby arms skyward, wanting to be picked up. He will trustingly put his soft little hand in mine and head off for a walk in the refuge where his dad works. He will relax back into my lap and chatter away, generating long sentences of words most of which I don't fully understand.

In a conversation with a neighbor, my son Eric said "They didn't really come to see US." That's not entirely true but the grandparent connection is probably the strongest draw... There's just nothing like it.

It's like you have no agenda. You don't really have to mold and discipline and worry about grammar and manners and grades and friends....you just have to be there. To be ready to focus your full attention on whatever story they want to share, whatever question they want to ask, whatever game they want to play. And, in the process, you can almost forget that you are a not -so -young person on the far side of middle age, and your heart can fill once again with the magic of childhood, reflected in their clear blue eyes.