WILLIAMSVILLE — I see him every six weeks or so. I insert myself into their lives on the pretext of helping, but truly it's this: if I don't get a regular dose of Henry, my toddling grandson, I will grow pale, old at heart.
Life abundant, he's the son of wise, infinitely loving, roll-with-the-punches parents, and his father, my son, sets me awash with emotions visit after visit.
To see one you parented turn around and parent is the cycle of life at full tilt. Pre-Henry, I'd often say, “You give your kid 18 years of your best material, then he ups and leaves.” But if that kid becomes a parent himself, that material plays back for you like old home movies; you see your own teachings and modelings - good and bad - reenacted in déjà vu.
On my early September visit, Henry, then nearing 16 months, first resisted me emphatically. Both parents had gone to work - mama to teach and advance good nutrition at the local co-op, and papa just down the hill, where he's building another structure on their 10 acres overlooking, through leggy, hill-happy trees, an endless stretch of the Green Mountains across the valley.
He's building their real house, with room for the three of them, which will feel capacious - if not palatial - compared to the little studio home James and Em raised a few years ago.
* * *
The door gently shut, the baby dissolved.
Tears billowed in his eyes and streamed down his cheeks; corners of his mouth turned down with conviction; he ran to the door.
“I've done this before,” I thought as I bolstered my courage to make everything OK. I've quelled many a baby's fears. Three at once, in fact, back when we had three under 3.
Checking my laces to be sure my shoes would safely carry us, I scooped up Henry to pace with him and sing. Over his first 16 months, I'd sung him nearly every song his father had loved - good songs that could soothe another generation.
The words all come back. I might not remember what I did this morning, but “Tender Shepherd,” “Hobo's Lullaby,” “Red River Valley” ... they're all there, top shelf in my mind.
After a spell of pacing and singing, I felt enough calm coming from his little body to gently sit him on my lap in the rocker, the place where he enjoys ultimate comfort with his mother. We pored over books. Or I did: he was more interested in eating pages than in grasping content that month.
Thus we survived that day - with a little napping, stacking and clanging pots and pans, and dancing into Tug, the 18-year-old family terrier, a patient gentleman.
The next day yielded a breakthrough: Sitting on the floor with my son in a chair nearby, I saw Henry eye me from a distance. He grinned and cooed - perhaps with the warmth of a growing connection.
With a little urging from Papa, he came quite boldly to me with a luscious hug and semi-circled me with kisses, from the right cheek all the way to left.
I had arrived. It was a pinch-me-freeze-this moment: I'd started to earn trust.
* * *
In these days, which seem more like the playing out of a dystopian novel than the average day in an older American's life, trust has become an elastic, plastic commodity. Earning so little of it, the nation's leadership has set a country three sheets to the wind - run amok with self interest, lies, and alternative facts: I wouldn't trust the White House with my laundry.
Aside from voting, making noise, and praying, I can't do much about that, I'm sorry to say. Evil runs its course, and goodness prevails. Or so this self-tagged Pollyanna on steroids wants to believe.
What I can do is build trust from ground up - organically, full-heartedly - starting with this little person. I can relearn that blissful process of building essential, enduring connection with him, who can now identify me in a photograph held up when I'm away as “Gamma.” (He identifies his other significant elders, too, including my partner, Breeze, with an ebullient “Beeze.”)
I'll relearn and, in turn, I'll teach him whatever I know that might help him thrive in dark times, that might help him go on to effect positivity in any way he can - small scale or grand - as he grows.
* * *
On my October visit, we hit our stride, Henry and I. He wailed lustily, but only briefly, when the last parent left the room; I scooped him up, gave him a big kiss on the milk-white fold of his neck, and sang to let him know he's my sunshine.
We soon settled on the little couch, I welcoming the little guy to tuck into the cocoon formed between my arm and my chest. Prepared with an eclectic stack of books and a couple of antique National Geographics I'd been keeping at home - God knows why - we dug in.
This time, as he'd just turned 17 months, he spared the pages and instead began to point:
Where's the bear? He pointed.
The caterpillar? Again.
And he turned the page.
And, oh, what's that?
“Seep."
And what does the sheep say?
And where are the strawberries?
And the monkeys?
Book after book, and some books two and three times, we worked on language, on the simple, joyful task of connecting shaped sounds to things we see.
To see the little pointer finger gingerly identify leaf, moon, cat, cow was like watching a magic box open.
“I like this.” I thought. “I can do this,” and my mind leapt to coaching him through his college essay as I did his papa and his uncles and hundreds of seniors in my teaching days.
But he looked up at me, deep in the eye, and I knew that my only duty then was to be present - to feel his little breaths and to marvel at the sounds they made, to prompt that little finger and to help him shape the words.
* * *
The silky ivory skin flushed at the cheeks, the brown saucer eyes, the angel hair - blond, floppy, and newly home-cut - this tactile joy, this full heart, this marvel at the passing of generations: This matters. This may be all that matters.
Human contact, sharing knowledge toward productive ends, building trust to ensure safe living, and taking time to count blessings - and the rabbits on the page.
And love: unidentified, uncharacterized, unqualified love that ripples through this moment.
These things matter.
In this climate of hate - November 2018 - that's spawned a tearing at peace, sanctuary, and all wholesome and healthy human bonds and interactions, it is easy to lose perspective.
As the pages of this dystopian fantasy fly by, each day bringing yet another zinger tweeted by such a pitiful excuse for a president - “a king of shreds and patches,” as Hamlet coined the usurping slimeball, King Claudius - a dangerous person leading us off the cliff to civil unrest and distress - I will linger for a bit each day on my grandson.
I'll do my part for greater good; I'll do all I can, but it might be that the best I can do is to stoke love and trust.
In a few weeks, Henry, when we gather for communal thanks, you'll be reminding us all - amidst settling dust - about what matters: about what power there is in earned trust and about what wholesome, connected, genuine love can stir.