In August we got a call on a Friday that Moe and Don wanted
to come down and see us Sunday. Nice
surprise. They had just been down on the
4th of July. We always take
visits from them whenever we can get them, but they were rare during the
pandemic. They were very careful about
the virus and insisted we be careful as well.
We were sitting outside in the sun, getting the Weber going,
when Moe went to her car and reappeared with a small gift bag. She handed it to her mother.
“What’s the occasion?”
“Nothing really. Just
something special for you.”
My wife reached in the bag and pulled out a fresh lime. She looked at Maureen and reached in
again. Nothing. She looked at her daughter with a quizzical
face.
“What’s the deal?”
“That lime is about the size of your grandchild.”
Fast forward to Fat Tuesday, February 16. The baby was due February 6. Moe and Don had been in the hospital since
noon Monday. When we went to sleep that
night, we were sure we would wake up to news of a birth. At 5:26 a.m. on Ash Wednesday I woke up and
immediately checked my phone. Nothing. I sent Don a text.
“Tell us something please.”
He texted back.
“We’re with the midwife.
Talk to you soon.”
Six months after that day in August when my wife looked
curiously at a lime in her hand, at 2:15 p.m. on February 17th, the world shifted to make room for a new soul.
Don and Moe became first-time parents, my wife and I became grandparents
along with Don’s Mom and Dad, and scores of people assumed new roles and
responsibilities. Siblings of the new
parents became aunts and uncles for the first time. Relatives in two families
received the news and added a name to their list of cousins, great-nephews and
nieces, and more. On top of all that, a
host of friends rejoiced. Don and Moe’s new
baby arrived not only to a family but also to a community.
Ultrasound images do babies no justice. We had seen blurred black and white
approximations of this infant, allegedly real and actual, several times during Moe’s
pregnancy. Then suddenly the baby appeared in the flesh on the small screens of
our smartphones.
Five days later we found both a snow-packed parking place
and our Air B&B, stashed our belongings, and took an Uber in the dark to
Don and Moe’s Humboldt Park apartment in Chicago. As we made our way through mounds of snow and
buried cars, we saw Don on his stoop standing under the porch light. He led us up the stairs to an apartment we
had visited over and over for ten years or more, now made new when the door opened
on our daughter Moe holding our granddaughter, June Colleen McClure Palmer. Our daughter Moe gave June to her mother to
hold, and when Colleen was done she gave her to me.
That very fact that life includes such miraculous events as the
moment one holds their first grandchild is a great gift. But then life itself, both our own and the lives
of those around us is equally miraculous. How is it we forget?
Eleven months ago, I worked the primary election on St.
Patrick’s Day, without a face mask, and the next day it seemed the entire
planet was shut down. Since then, two and a half million souls worldwide were
lost to Covid 19, more than a half-million of them in our country alone. Our next-door neighbor died of Covid. My wife and I lived alone and apart from
family and friends for almost a year.
The day before June was born, my wife and I got our second
injections of the Moderna vaccine and when we received the news of June’s
arrival, I was huddled on my couch under a winter coat and an afghan. Safe, I was assured, from the ill effects of
a Covid infection, but plagued by chills and aches. Eleven months of near isolation, spared from
the pandemic by modern science, new grandparents, and though not out of the
woods suddenly much less worried about harming our new granddaughter and those
we love. Sometimes life rushes at you
like a river in flood.
l was telling June all about the past year as I held her on
the couch at our Air B&B. At just a
week old, she wasn’t interested. I tried
singing “The Pony Man” by Gordon Lightfoot, having brushed up on the lyrics anticipating
this rare chance to perform. June was
unimpressed.
June did a lot of yawning and seemed intent on determining
how many ways she could move her mouth and tongue. If she saw me or even heard me, she didn’t
let on. I may have known this previously and forgotten, but I’ve concluded with
certainty that it is hard to even guess what babies might be thinking.
Not that I let that stop me. I made a point of establishing for
June her whereabouts, not knowing if she’d been told.
“In Chicago, where you and your parents live, it’s been
snowing like hell and roofs have been caving in. Some buildings have fallen down
entirely. But if I were you June, I
wouldn’t worry about it. Those are big old
abandoned buildings, older than me, built when they were still using bow truss
rafters. Back then architects thought they
could get away with wide spans of unsupported roofs by using those rafters, but it
turns out when you get a lot of snow like this without a thaw, those old roofs
can’t take the load anymore. Your apartment is OK though, and this place
too. Old carriage house we think. Good stout beams tying the walls
together. Look up. You can see them. The hipsters exposed the wood.”
June turned her head but looked out the French doors
instead. I believe a streetlight caught
her attention.
“I read about those trusses in the Tribune. Good newspaper. I hope it’s still around when you learn to
read.”
I have my doubts about it lasting but hated to tell her.
June yawned. She
won’t read for another five years or so.
In five years, I’ll be 74. When
she graduates from high school, I’ll be 87.
“While your Mom was pregnant with you, our country had a really
bad president. Probably the worst
ever. But you live in the United States
of America where we have free and fair elections. So, we voted him out. After he lost the election for his second term,
he worked up his followers and they stormed the Capitol building in D.C., trying
to stop the Senate from certifying the vote.
Didn’t work. With any luck you’ll
never have to deal with him or anyone like him again. Joe Biden is in the White House now and the democrats
control the house and senate too. You
were born at a good time.”
June hiccupped. She
seemed to be staring right at me as she made those little hiccup sounds, hardly
caring about them at all. Her chest
puffed up when she hiccupped. Tiny
little chest. Everything about babies is
tiny.
“You know June when the weather gets better and you start
getting out more, you can visit me down in Ottawa. Your grandma and I have a big yard with tall
trees. I used to swing your Mom and your
Uncle Dean on a tire swing there. I
still have the tire. I can put it back
up. I know the branch. It’s still there.”
She kept hiccupping but seemed intrigued at the same time.
“At the edge of the yard, by a deep ravine, I have a little
shack. We can hang out there. I’ve got a lot of good stuff in there to look
at and play with. Although I may have to
clean it up some and do a little baby proofing.”
A whole lot of cleaning and massive baby proofing as I
thought about it. June was getting
antsy. Doing some squirming. Her Mom came over to see us.
“I think it is time June eats her supper, Papa.”
My family thinks June should call me Papa.
“Ok. Well, June and I
had a nice talk. I’ll guess you can have
her.”
I’m happy to report that it all comes back, this being with a
baby feeling. I remember when June’s Mom
was equally tiny, and my wife left her with me alone for the first time. I put her on a blanket on the living room
floor. I had a play session planned
where she and I would set up a winding pretend road and drive play trucks down
the road making truck noises while a toy plane flew overhead. A whole afternoon of action and
entertainment.
Turns out that day, thirty-five plus years ago, June’s Mom found
her thumb, was fascinated with it, and before you know it fell asleep. I learned quickly that when babies are tiny,
they pretty much eat and sleep. You
can’t rush a baby’s development. They’re
in charge.
That’s how my time with June ended that day in the carriage
house. We had a talk, fairly one-sided,
she nursed, and then went to sleep. It
was both an uneventful and wonderful time.
I can’t wait to do it again.
In the days after June was born but before I met her, while thinking
of good songs for kids, I asked Alexa, my faceless, always responsive, never
failing voice of fact and reason in the kitchen, to play lullabies. As often
happens, she responded with things I’d never considered. One of them was a song by Christina Perri
called “A Thousand Years” which I never thought of as a lullaby. To me, it was always a tender love song for
grownups. Now it sounds different. Especially these lyrics.
I
have died, every day, waiting for you.
Darling
don’t be afraid I have loved you
For
a thousand years.
I
love you for a thousand more.
And
all along I believed I would find you
Time
has brought your heart to me
I
have loved you for a thousand years
I
love you for a thousand more.
I remember the days I first held each of my kids, Maureen
and Dean. I was there when they were
conceived, born, and all the days in between.
I was Moe’s Dad at age 31 and Dean’s Dad at 33. I remember that guy, that new Dad, and how he
felt.
He was in the delivery room wearing a hospital gown. Twice nurses put his wrapped-up babies in his
arms and twice he was a little scared. They
were so small. He had loved them since
before they were born, and now they needed his and his wife’s help for
everything. He felt so responsible for
their well-being but down deep he didn’t exactly know what he was doing. “Thank God for my wife” was what that young guy
kept thinking.
You would think holding a grandchild would feel the
same. It didn’t. I know June’s parents so well that I’m not
scared in the least for June’s future. They
may be worried, but I’m not. My
overwhelming wish now is that I will be here, with her Grandma, for as much of June’s
future as possible.
We assembled our nuclear family in Chicago for a home-cooked
dinner. When counting noses, I was
somehow gobsmacked by the realization that we had grown from six to seven. And after dinner, when I cut the cake we bought
at an old Wicker Park bakery to celebrate June’s first week on earth,
I wondered silently just how much of a head start I had on my
granddaughter. I worked it out later on a
calculator. It comes out to this:
June 1 week
Papa 3,607 weeks
One of the great joys of my life has been watching my
children’s lives unfold into adulthood.
I know it may not be the same with June.
Like all human beings, June and I will have only so many weeks in our
lifetimes. But she has a lot more in her
future than her Papa.
Maybe lullabies are love songs after all, and vice versa. And maybe somehow, they are inspired by grandparents hoping to pack the extravagant amount of love they feel for their grandchildren into however much time their lives overlap. Maybe even a thousand years.
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