And
so Alex and I sit on the couch like an old married couple while she watches
Dora, a favorite little-girl cartoon
character who appears to be a conglomeration of ethnicities, diversities and the
latest niceties. Alex’s concentration on
the DVD is lost from time to time …… maybe because this is viewing number 938 …..
and she wanders in and out of one spoken
thought or another about life in general
as a modern young lady. She got peanut
butter on her shirt yesterday. Her little
sister can be a pain. Her friend Gina is
coming over to play tomorrow. When I
attempt to identify with her musings and tell her I remember similar things
when I was a little kid, she reacts with complete rejection of the idea I was
ever a kid. “No WAY!” I’ve learned not to argue. Instead, I tell her I’m going to the moon as
soon as I get my bicycle fixed.
“That’s
nice,” she says, rolling her eyes.
Sarcasm has come late to the girl at 5 years of age. But I like to think I had a hand in it.
An
adult lady friend of mine …. maybe she’s almost seventy, I’ve certainly never asked
…. once explained I have a job as a grandparent. It isn’t to be a stand-in parent or a
counselor or a seer. It is to be a
grandparent. When I asked what she
meant, she said, “I don’t know what it
would be for you. You’ll figure it
out.” I can’t tell you how many times
in life “You’ll figure it out” has been an annoying, but precisely accurate
truth.
I
can teach as well as learn. Maybe I am
to teach Alex mildly funny people come in great big packages. Maybe, Daddies can sometimes be serious, but grandpas
are more often silly, so she will grow up to someday be a silly, loveable grandma. Maybe, Aunt Sally isn’t really listening to you
unless she gets down on the floor with you.
And Grandma may not mean what she's
saying unless she has her arms around you.
Maybe I’m not here to teach her anything at all. Maybe I’m just supposed to be here to listen.
That would be quite a lesson for both of us.
I
hope we’ll always have these talks. Even
when she is … like … a teenager? They’ll do me a world of good.
David
Griffin Copyright 2007
The Windswept Press
Murrells
Inlet, South
Carolina
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