Thursday, August 25, 2016

A Vacation From Real Life

Every day I sat by the side of my granddaughter who lay back in an old fashioned over-stuffed comfy velveteen chair with a view out the window to the sparkling waters of an inlet of the coast of Cape Breton.  She was mostly nursing her six weeks old first baby and my second great grandchild.  The house was alive with visitors, my two daughters, and one of my sons, the grandfather of the new baby, who had come to help out since his ex-wife was busy tending to her dying mother.  It was my first extended exposure to him in many many years and one of the most pleasing surprises of the visit. Apart from his continued great good looks, he was the most agreeable kindly father figure, cooking up meals for his daughter and her family as well as his siblings, not just pick me up either, but successful efforts at cuisine, night after night, assisted ably by his sisters and his son-in-law.  Other times he spelled his daughter's fourteen year old stepson in rocking the baby, singing a variety of made for the moment lullabies.  What could be nicer than to see two males of the family tending so assiduously to baby details?  While my granddaughter rested between the incessant breast feeding, she often had the baby across her belly, and I thus had ample opportunity to gaze at the infant.  I don't remember studying one so intently although having been father to four such tiny creatures I must have. This baby upon constant and close inspection grew upon me, I noted every detail of his physiognomy, the darling little face, the mouth, the eyes, the way his hair grew, his tiny toes, and on and on and on.  I was filled with equal amounts of love and, what can I say?, generational joy, I, the patriarch, sitting in a room filled with my progeny.  My parents who died so young never knew the satisfaction of surveying their brood of six expanded to over a score or more, scattered thither and yon over the North American continent.  And for me the days were filled with discussions of the fat content of mother's milk, did the baby have the hiccups, was the diaper filled with poop, why did the diaper leak urine, was the baby smiling at me or was this reflex, and on and on, and never once did I give thought to Donald and Hillary, except when my exceedingly intelligent step-great grandson at fourteen astounded me with a detailed astonished Canadian's assessment of some of the loonier aspects of the American political scene.

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