From the soft and cozy feel of the blanket surrounding my grandson as he was handed to me in the Prince Edward Island hospital room to the now smirky smile of his thirteen-year old face on Skype, I call it the feeling of love.
I still get emotional thinking of the call. Me in Saskatchewan; my daughter thousands of miles away in the Canadian Maritimes and she in labour.
It helped that two hours from that moment I owned an airline ticket and was able to be with him the day he was born.
A marvel to behold; as he stretched and gurgled, burped and spit up. The first ten days of his life I could hold him as much as I wanted. His teeny fingers wrapped around mine. My fingers shook as I put the pin through his diaper the first time.
I’m glad six months later he was living in Saskatchewan. I put the rocking chair to good use. I sang “Lullaby and Goodnight” to my heart’s content.
From crawling to stumbling to waddling through the park; I’d lay on grass for hours watching him try to catch seagulls. He’d fall asleep to the wind in the poplars.
We went from marbles to jack’s; old maid to rummy; duck, duck goose to angels in the snow. From balloons in the basement; volleyball in the living room; to backyard ball. The best; the sevens game on any wall we could find.
Till he got too good.
I loved hosting his fifth birthday party. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to use the hockey stick on the pinata. The candy spilled, the race was on and lucky no one was hurt.
The school concert where he and another boy performed a shoving match on the risers is a memory stored for a lifetime.
Him teaching me to skateboard. Disaster! How he laughed!
“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”
I loved the overnighters; me at his place or he at mine. The unmasked innocence upon awakening takes me back to his first day on earth. Essence revealed.
2012
ellensagh 