Donovan Kelly

With tunnel vision we view distant grandchildren. First step. First tooth. First word. First Grade. The latest bulletins in the lives of our grandchildren that we too often share second hand, because they are there and we are here.

Is this the good news or the bad news for the slightly older, slightly weary bodies that grandparents have developed through years of family practice?

Is the "there not here" arrangement an evolutionary blessing, a way to help preserve the grandparent generation?

On those days when the slightly older body finds that mowing the yard is a yard too far, when just thinking about playing in the sandbox is exhausting, who needs a grandchild?

I do.

Why? If you have to ask, you'll never understand.

It's a state of mind, an acquired taste developed over the years, just like my addictions to sunrise coffee, and honey on warm toast. Some have it, some don't. If you are a don't, that's OK. But please pass the honey and I'll take a grandchild on the side. Both sides if possible.

Ahh, the good new days, the glorious grandparent days, when the grandchild himself slides into our laps. Always, bigger, taller, more self-assured than we remember from our last bit of tunnel vision.

And alive! No longer seen as vague bits of photographs, telephone bulletins and email, but an actual loving, running, shouting sawed-off human being.

He exploded out of Mama's car, handed me a truck, tugged at my hand and said, "Paw. Digger."

Two-year-old boys are given to many thoughts but not so many words. Let me translate. "Dearest grandfather, please hold this truck, which you can play with until I need it. Now come with me to the sandbox and I will be happy to show you again the right way to dig roads."

This is a special occasion child. The one who grows in spurts and bursts between occasions, between visits. In our tunnel vision, we develop cold, still pictures of distant grandchildren. We watch them grow and change in single frame bursts of time lapsed photography that covers the refrigerator. Where do the time and lapses go? Gone in too much mowing yards. Gone like yesterday's sunrise that can never be saluted with toast and honey again.

What's not gone is hope, well-aged hope, nurtured in a slightly older body. A trust in tomorrow's sunrise, in tomorrow's visit, in tomorrow's burst of grandchild energy.

Grow on oh grass, while I with gleeful tread, play in the sandbox my grandson plays, a day not wasted mowing, but building little roads instead.

(Paw Kelly writes from his sandbox in Hamilton. He can be reached at donovan@donovanwrites.com.)