Recursive Words

One minute you’re calling that girl you met and asking if she might to go out for a drink. The next minute you’re standing at the front of a church together. A minute after that you’re chasing little ones around the house. A minute or two later they’ve left school, and have their first jobs. And a minute after that you find out you’re going to become a grandfather.

My first grandchild was born a little earlier this evening.

Where did the time go?

Of course I know exactly where it went – working, washing up, washing clothes, tidying up, going on days out, visiting school productions, school fundraisers, helping with school projects, helping with homework, swearing under my breath, looking at the ceiling, laughing, crying, shouting, holding my head in my hands (more than once).

And now I get to watch my daughter do it all again.

It’s funny, how everything goes around in circles, isn’t it. We bring our children up the best way we know how. They presume when they are young that we have the answers for everything. Eventually they have an “oh shit” moment where they realise we were making it up as we went along – but they also figure out (hopefully) that there’s nothing wrong with that.

We hope that we have armed them with enough to make their way. We might grimace from time to time at their decisions, but we also know it’s best to try and let them get on with it.

I’m reminded of the question and answer from Walt Whitman’s famous poem:

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

I won’t be stealing my daughter’s chance to share her first photos and stories with the world. I’m not going to be one of those parents or grandparents that leverages their children or grandchildren for reflected attention. They are her stories to tell, and her moments to share.

It’s only just dawning on me that I have to learn how to be a grandparent.

I suppose I’ve got a year or so to figure it out.

A year or two to pull out my favourite story books, and to introduce another (hopefully) willing accomplice to the adventures of Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Tinkerbell, Aslan, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, Mole, Badger, Ratty and Mr Toad, and of course Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Kanga and Owl.

I wonder if children realise we enjoy reading and sharing the stories as much as they do listening to them?