Donovan Kelly
Crummy But Good Writer with a Lighter Touch
“ Paw, why are you making those noises?”
Another good question from my favorite three-year-old and the 322nd opportunity he has given me to wonder if I should laugh or cry. Nailed again by this sawed-off midget who keeps exposing the thinness of my veneer of superior adulthood.
Yesterday he had stretched to his full 40-inch length in the bath tub and announced, “I’m getting long, aren’t I?” It was half question and 90 percent hopeful. “Don’t you think I'm long enough now for the water park?”
“You are getting long,” I said, half proudly, 90 percent sadly, and totally evasive. First it’s the water park, then college and too soon they are gone. I lived through the goodbye passages with my own children and now I have to face the same thing with my grandchildren.
Was it not in this very same bathtub that the granddaughter who still runs my life promised at age two that she would not get any bigger? Now Isabella is a tall seven, a beautiful seven, and I can already see 16 and boys. Goodbye Paw.
Get off it Paw. Stop making whining noises. For a grandparent it is not a debate about whether the glass is half full or half empty. It is the joy of realizing we still have a glass in our hand, one that any minute could fill with the effervescence that is grandchildren.
Sure the glass may be clouded by bifocals, arthritis and gray hairs. But you got glass. You got life.
You also got, briefly, a three-year-old who believes every story you tell and watches every move you make. Like today when Grandma and I had a slightly heated discussion. Grandma went into the kitchen to take out her anger on dirty dishes. Me, I just sat in my chair and huffed and puffed and vented to myself.
This was when Elijah asked, “Paw, why are you making those noises?”
I could only laugh and cry at my adult foolishness. Why indeed was I sitting here snorting? Grandma was a far better woman than any old doddering Paw deserved. Besides, didn’t I have an Elijah right here and two granddaughters close by? My glass was full indeed.
“I’m just making silly Paw noises,” I said to Elijah.
Then I issued a distracting challenge I knew he couldn’t resist.
in the whole world.
Picking up our current favorite book —Richard Scarry’s “Cars and Trucks and Things That Go” — I said, “This time I am going to find the pickle truck first. ” And instantly my lap filled with a bouncing three-year-old, who is already the best pickle truck finder in the whole world.
(Kelly and his glass write from Hamilton and hide out as donovan@donovanwrites.com.)