I Bought a Soft Toy Today
I woke up to the news from my daughter; You’re going to be a grandfather, pops!
That’s the kind of news that makes me want to do weird things, like take a dip in a cold stream. I came into my daughter’s life when she was just into her teens. For any young person, accepting a new authoritative figure in their life is not easy, and most times not, welcome. My daughter was not about to leave me in any doubt where I should take my next vacation: up to my neck in the sand somewhere in the Mojave Desert.
Earning a teenager’s love and respect isn’t easy. I kept count; I ruined her life twenty-seven times in that first year. Over time, I didn’t teach her anything she couldn’t learn elsewhere, but in the end, she taught me everything on what it would really take to earn her love. I learned with a little heartache, plenty of joy, but mostly I learned with pride; pride because she has become a great American woman and an incredibly special individual.
I must have written several million words, fifty thousand in San Francisco, give a noun or two. I’ve written on walls, park benches, trees, and even scraped the words ‘I love you’ on a bar of soap and watched those words disappear with use.
I’ve never written about becoming a grandfather.
My first thought was a simple one — if becoming a grandfather can be compared to the sun coming out, that’s the kind of weather I think I’ll hang back in the shade. I’m not going to scrub up clean enough to be the kind, gentle, proud grandfather I truly want to be. I’ve done lots of strange things, fought, bitten, bolted my way through life waiting to be anything but a grandfather.
Hey, Grandpa, my wife yelled, as I came off the beach, holding up a t-shirt with the words, ‘Greatest grandpa in the world’ scrawled on its front. Take that bloody thing down, I said, hoping no-one had seen it.
Had she freed herself from the kitchen sink just to wave that shirt at me?
I turned around.
What’s next, a fucking stroller!
Did my daughter think I would be overjoyed when she’s had to forgive my bad behavior a million times? I failed every quiz on good parenting and made the kinds of mistakes that are carried forever.
But none of this fear happened.
None of it.
I remember I looked at my cell phone. I should say something. The feeling bit at the back of my eyes, flooding them with tears, as if all the wrong tracks trod had been filled in. My body felt boneless. I was going to be blessed with a grandchild by a daughter who has not always seen me as a hero.
Then I just blurted out: I’ll be the greatest grandpa in the world, honey. I truly will.
I know you will, pops, she said.
When I found the courage to look up again, the expression on my wife’s face broke me open. Her arms wrapped around me so tight.
That was all it took.
We stood in the kitchen for what felt like hours, talking about ways to be the best grandparents we could be. There has to be a secret recipe, right?
I would go to hell and back to protect my daughter, and if I need to turn myself inside out to be the unbreakably loving grandpa for the first time, knowing whatever happened in the course of living this life has been worth it because the most powerful chronicle is yet to be written.
