Tag Archives: grandson

The Spirit of a Boy

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Writers obtain inspiration from a variety of sources. Mine usually come in dreams, or as I’m waking in the morning. Sometimes a character talks to me while I’m walking or driving asking to have his/her story told. It can be said to be divine, or mystical, or even crazy but it is magical. This is the true story of a spirit who guided me to write a poem.

At the tender age of sixty-two I suddenly realized that I would never be a grandmother. It had been my highest ambition, having grown up with wonderful grandparents and great-grandparents. As Polonius said, “and it must follow as the night, the day….” (totally out of context) I believed it was the natural culmination of a life well lived. I made the bold statement to my three progeny at various times that my aim in having children was so I could eventually be a grandma. I think that may have been a step too far. In hindsight, probably not a great tactic in the parent/child relationship.

By April, 2008 none of them exhibited any interest in procreation. NONE. They were happily living the lives they designed without one thought to my hopes and desires. Oh me, oh my. For several years, I had pinned baby pictures of my friends’ grandchildren and even the children of my childrens’ friends on a wall in my office cubicle. Someday, I believed, the wall would contain a load of pictures of MY grandchildren. But now all my children had exceeded their fortieth birthday and no grandchildren on the horizon. Not even a hint, a whiff, a whisper, a sign.

That evening I sat with my journal and began to jot down a poem mourning the conscious loss of something I would never have. I wrote about the little granddaughter I wished for – all the things I envisioned doing with her.

The next day I went to my computer to transcribe that story to submit to my writers’ group. As I sat at my desk, I felt the strong presence of a little boy hovering over my left shoulder. I could hear his voice. He wanted me to bake a cake for his third birthday. His spirit was so vivid, that the story of my granddaughter morphed into a poem about my grandson. I read it to my writer’s group the next week with an air of sad resignation, a kind of mourning.

My Grandson at Three
A memoir of loss

A chubby bundle of verve
Dirty knees, killer smile
A charming packet of cuddles,
Blue eyes spark with wonder
That is my grandson

Innocence and childish wisdom
Life – a fish bowl of dashing delights
A bright idea swishes past
A clever observation
The world full of marvels

At three his every thought
Becomes action
Or question to be explored
Energy and curiosity
Cascade thru our day

From awakening
Til he is tucked away
Too tired to dream
My grandson to me is
Joy, delight, a miracle

Sweet arms surround my neck
“Read it again, gramma”
Good Night Moon redux
Snuggles in my lap
Affection, a two-way road, no tolls

I know it can’t last
This rapture of childhood
If love holds when he is grown
He’ll read to me
In the afterglow of remembrance

I wished a granddaughter
Tea parties and dress up
I wanted a granddaughter
To primp and pamper
I dreamed a grandson, the light of my life

I am the mother of three
None plan children of their own
Their choice, their path
Expectation denied
A loss I mourn

He will never be born to the world
In consolation of loss
My grandson is born to my heart
A luminous vibration of life
Forever tenderly just mine.

On Mother’s Day, May 11, 2008, I received a call from our eldest daughter who was living in Hawaii. “Hi Mom,” she said, “Happy Mother’s Day. You are going to be a grandma.” I was stunned. Excited, stunned, excited, over-the-moon, amazed. It was several days before I remembered the little boy who asked me to bake his birthday cake. My daughter declared that she was not going to find out the sex of her child until it was born. I had a hard time keeping the secret – I knew a little boy was on his way. He told me so about a month earlier.

Our daughter was divorced and moved to Tucson just before her baby was born. Ken and I were privileged to be part of his childhood.  I did bake his birthday cake for his third birthday, white cake with chocolate frosting and M&M’s. He is all that I dreamed. He does have blue eyes and a killer smile. He is a bundle of energy and light. He is a blessing beyond my imagining. He taught himself to play the piano by ear at age three. He learned to play the guitar from his mama. He played little league with his grandpa as a coach. He’s a scholar at school taking honors and AP courses. He is now over six feet tall, nearly as tall as grandpa, and very much his own person. He belongs to his high school mountain biking team. He has participated in El Tour de Tucson Bike Race every year since he was four starting with the fun run, then the five mile and so on. This year he challenged himself to ride the longest run – 105 miles that he completed in five hours. Oh, the bragging can go on and on for pages.

This past weekend we celebrated his 15th birthday. I baked a German Chocolate birthday cake for him.

And at nap time when he was little, we did read Goodnight Moon – many times.

Granpa and Henry
El Tour de Tucson 2023

Summer Legacy Project

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

Our grandson, Henry, just began his first year of high school. Oh, the nostalgia that bubbled up in me. Our daughter, as a single mom, gave us the opportunity to be a big part of his childhood. Instead of putting him in daycare, she asked if we would be willing to have him at our house during the week while she was working. Willing? We jumped at the chance to be part of his growing up. What a privilege! He was the focal point of each weekday from the time he was one (she stayed home with him for his first year) until he started school full-time at age six. Then he was with us after school and holidays for several years until he was in middle school. Thereafter we became traditional grandparents, seeing him once or twice a week. We have settled into a lovely routine for Sunday mornings – brunch and a visit weekly to catch up on his news.

Final seat wall

For this past summer, Henry spent part of each Friday with us. He had a job Monday through Thursday as a camp counselor at Steam Pump Ranch archeology camp. He had been a camper there for a couple of weeks every summer until he aged out at thirteen.

I had a special project for him. I asked him to build a brick seat wall on our front patio. I wanted a legacy project that would be a permanent part of our house – something he contributed that would be functional for us and would occupy those Fridays. I always wanted more seating for guests on our front patio, a place we sit with coffee or cocktails to look at the mountains and enjoy the activity in the neighborhood. He was in charge from conception to finish. We had final say on design and materials; he planned and built it, and we reviewed it and paid for the materials.

Henry began with internet research – of course, he’s fourteen and everything begins with the internet. He came up with a plan and put it on paper showing us the front, side, and top scheme of what the wall would look like. He made an interlocking pattern for stability. Then he researched materials, where to buy, and what adhesive to bind them together. Finally, he was ready to order materials for delivery. That was a biggy since he was then spending real money. Bricks were delivered (not without drama over missed shipments and duplicate shipments). A pile of bricks then had to be made into a real structure according to his plan. There were only three bricks left over – now I call that great planning.

Measure for sure
Following the plan

Amazing! It worked. He built it just as he envisioned it. Now we have exactly what I wanted, and his brain and hands created it entirely. What a legacy!

Partially built

Things That Matter

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

In the hustle bustle of our everyday life, we lose sight of things that matter, even if they are right in front of us.  I was attempting to clean up my office area in the library/cat grotto. It is one of those tasks that never really ends, just begins – again and again. I get it mostly done then find something I meant to read or something I want to ponder or write and there goes an hour or two. By the time I’ve come back to the task, I’ve lost momentum and the remaining mess is shuffled to a corner until tomorrow or mañana, whichever comes first.

Along the way, I rediscover treasures. They are treasures of the heart. Part of the beauty of having a special place of my own to write, read, and think is that I surround myself with what my husband calls stuff. Photos, cherished books, posters, artwork, and objets d’art that have meaning for me. If piled all together they wouldn’t have the market value of a head of lettuce.

On the wall above my desk is a homemade birthday card from my grandson when he was eight or nine. Homemade in every respect. He made the paper and then printed the greeting on it. It reads Happy Birthday Grandma. You have a heart of pure – there he glued some gold fragments in the middle of the paper. It is signed Love Henry. There is no currency that can equal the value of that piece of handmade paper.  

On the wall next to it is one of Ben’s Bells that I found one evening when I was out with friends. It is a pay-it-forward symbol of intentional kindness. The story behind it is of a two-year-old boy who died suddenly in 2002. His grieving mother and family began making ceramic wind chimes to heal their grief. They were joined by others who helped. Four hundred bells were made and distributed around Tucson in random places on the first anniversary of Ben’s death. The one I found was hanging on a tree branch in a restaurant parking lot – it says “Be Kind”. Thousands of people joined the effort to make and distribute the bells. The movement grew as a non-profit educational program of kindness in schools and businesses all over the world. Every school I’ve been to around Oro Valley has a kindness program with the Ben’s Bells logo at the center of it. The green Be Kind symbol is displayed on school walls as a reminder. Awards are given at the end of the year to students who have displayed kindness toward others.

Those are just a couple of items that make my fortune more valuable than gems, or gold, or silver.

Ten Years Later

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Rutherford B 2012
Rutherford B 2022

I just looked back on this lame blog that was started ten years ago. It has been abysmally neglected in the intervening time. Ten years ago Steady Eddy (I named my family in my first blog post and will stick to those names to protect the innocent) and I were spending a good deal of time as caregivers for our grandson while his mom, our Athena, worked hard to support them. It was our pleasure, our delight, and our privilege. We had a world of fun watching him grow. He is a very bright, very charming person who, even at age three, taught us a lot. Now he is thirteen, on the brink of manhood, taller than his grandmother – but not yet his grandfather. He is still teaching – me about computers, the internet, and, other stuff I didn’t know I needed to know, instead of me teaching him reading and writing. Time doesn’t just fly, it rockets.