On Being An Older Grandfather - 2020

ON BEING AN OLDER GRANDFATHER (2020)

     Thirty-one years ago, we, Jamie Donnelly and I, brought our infant son home. Sevi Donnelly Foreman was three months old when we first met him. We'd flown to Medellin, Colombia to complete the process of adoption so we could bring him home. Thirty-one years later our son returned home with his son, Dorian Alexander, now eighteen months, our grandson. We are on yet another journey, Jamie and I. At forty-two years, we are a unit, sometimes imperfect, but still. We are. There is history here. The past few years have not always been easy, in fact, have rarely been easy. Each time the phone rang we'd wonder if the police were calling to tell us our son was dead. We knew he was out there, without protection, in danger, partnering with someone violent and unstable. Yet, our beloved son found his way back home, his way, not ours, but, still. Home.  "Home," said Robert Frost, "is where when you have to go there they have to take you in." Well, he did come home, and we did take him in. How could we not? His son brought my son home. 

     When Jamie and I decided to adopt we availed ourselves of an adoption counselor to help guide us towards the right decision. I can’t remember her name, but I could never forget this woman: six plus feet tall, very plain, baggy clothes, humorless, wise, to the point, and legally blind. An ancient seer from out of the forest. She was the court appointed social worker assigned to visit the homes of prospective parents. We drove to her plain, cluttered office in a nondescript house in a nondescript development in a nondescript plot of Long Island. Somewhere. Could never find it again. Hundreds perhaps a thousand photos of children covered her walls. When she left the room for a minute, Jamie said, “Look at those pictures, Stephen. They’re all so beautiful.” The counselor returned to the room and said, “Look again. They are all not so beautiful. But you must be prepared to say, “I will love this child forever”. I will love this child forever. I cannot write these words without tears. We made that decision, and, once made, there were no more decisions – tactics, yes, of course, but not decisions.

      Carl Sandburg said, “Children are God’s opinion that life should go on.” While I can’t attest to this with  theological certainty, my children certainly made life full and deep and wonderful, but they did not make life easy. An old cowboy I knew back in Montana, Aaron Pursely, said about his kids, “Wouldn’t give ya a nickel for ‘em; wouldn’t take a million”.  I get it. Two years after her brother, Madden Rose, my daughter, four months, brought her roaring zest, astonishing red hair, and raucous good humor from Colombia, and then, for forever, it was our little band against the world. Until it wasn't. One day, Sevi and Jamie were talking about his difficulty adjusting to a baby sister. "I thought you wanted a sister," Jamie said. "I did," he replied, "But I didn't want you to be her mother." Like most roads, ours was pocked for stretches at a time with potholes, at least two of which qualified as rim busters, but there have also been long, sweet, peaceful miles of private roads ripe with pure pleasure, tooling along, singing a song, the dog ate my ice cream cone, however, like summer in the mountains, they never quite lasted long enough. Tiny creatures. Yours to keep safe until they are no longer yours, as if that will ever happen.  They fly along like seed pods carried elsewhere by the wind, yet, there are times when, given the prevailing currents, without warning, the wind brings a seed pod back.

          So, Dorian Alexander. An actress I met at a party in Hollywood forty-two years ago is his grandmother. She and Gerry Ragni ("mad, bad, and dangerous to know" as Lady Caroline once said about Lord Byron) who, with Jim Rado, created and starred in the original “Hair” on Broadway - Jamie and Gerry dragged me (no pun intended) to dance clubs in LA - "I Will Survive." Donna Summer. "It's Raining Men." -  an experience as foreign to me as sliced ham on a seder plate. However, when the volcanic level thump-da-thump-da-thump-thump-thump finally pounded me damn near senseless,, Jamie and I would dance for hours. Non stop. I had no idea what I was doing, but that didn’t stop me from doing it. We were in great shape. Had to be. Now, she's sitting on the floor doing, "Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man..." with a creature not yet two, her face as delightful as ever, perhaps a bit more peaceful.  

          Has anyone anywhere ever had an ugly grandchild? Odds? He is a perfect little creature, as perfect as any since my own two perfect little creatures, but the feelings are not the same. The love is no less intense, but it feels, somehow, more buoyant, less fraught, unencumbered by small print, knowing what hurts and what doesn’t. Free to wander, feelings surge way past barriers you'd never have known were there. They erupt. From the deep. How come? This is not flight or fight but something else that overcomes the strongest of us, a tap root into the deep-down-dark when beginning was all there was. Do they give us life when life is almost over? A bit more time to pass it on? A fellow named Gaston Bachelard wrote, "Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child's world, and thus is a world event." And thus it is a world event for me, too. 

Maybe, when we raised our own children, we were too concerned with getting it right. Now's our chance to start over. Nail it this time. No mistakes. News flash: Fugedaboudit! That's no longer our province. My grandson explores the world and takes me with him. Everything is a first. Alpha and Omega. We have the benefit of each other's knowledge. The peace and innocence of his face becomes the peace of my own. Perhaps this is the reason - peace -  peace to “help me make it through the night”, as Tammy Wynette once sang.

He's been walking for awhile and on the verge of actual words. I make a goofy sound; he makes a goofy sound. I've got this kid listening!  Time to raid the old trunk. I'm grooming a whole new audience for all my malarkey! I’m dusting off routines from years ago! That renowned family classic, The Ice Monkey, is anxious to lunge out of retirement. And Jamie's face, peaceful and endearing, as she gently coaches her grandson in his effort to make his first word.

Here's a sight: a little human turning the pages of a book held upside down while sitting on the outstretched legs of some weathered, grey-haired guy of indeterminate but unmistakable age, wearing a faded flannel shirt and and ancient jeans sitting in the tattered armchair that was his father's, one he's been hauling around for years. Been a whole lot of dogs sat in that chair. Kep' it warm. One birthday he was given a new one. The next day Habitat for Humanity came and took it away. It wasn't that the chair was bad or anything like that. It was actually quite handsome. Brand new. That was the problem. It just didn't have any stories in it. 

         

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