What an emotional
cliffhanger! I had to wait 59 years, five months and 17 days to make
grandfather. Now it can be told: The waiting has been a semi-harrowing
experience.
Toward the end, I took to
wistfully stopping by playgrounds to watch the elderly blessed cavort with
their offspring one generation removed. The longeurs of supermarket lines
evanesced in a wisp of adjacent carts carried squirming children the right age
to be my grandchildren.
Sometimes, when
grandpaternal control failed, I imagined myself doing a much better job
maintaining the discipline which is always at the mercy of wanting the little
beasts to love you unqualifiedly.
One of my best professor
friends already had two grandchildren, and though his conjugal life was not a
very great improvement over my divorced state, I found myself drifting to
Trenton more and more frequently to bask in the glow of his grandfatherliness.
He had become slightly dotty over the admittedly quirky but beloved behavior of
his first granddaughter. Oh, how I envied his indulgence of her.
I returned from trips
abroad with absurdly disproportionate numbers of shots of local children. (This
was especially true of China and Japan, but even chubby Russki kids, who do not
generally rank high in my pantheon of childhoodry.) These shots were derisively
referred to as my “grandpaw pix.” I knew indeed what they meant. I hungered for
tiny animals of my own to fondle and spoil.
Toward the end, my malaise—grandchildlessness—took
an ugly turn. I railed at the barren couple, uttering petty threats. “If you
don’t assuage my grandfatherly feelings by such and such a year, I’ll
disinherit you.”
They laughed uproariously
at this pathetic sanction. Who in their right mind would give up birth control
for $1.73?
Driven to desperation, I
brandished my ultimate weapon: reproductiveness. “If you don’t pop a perky tot
in my arms by such and such a date, I’ll have my vasectomy reversed and go into
production again myself.” Perhaps the thought of me absurdly sperm banking at
my age put some sense into their heads. They got down to business.
Christmas 1985: The best
present I’ve ever received was their joint announcement that they had joined
together, successfully, in holy, let-the-genes-fall-where-they-may copulation.
July 15th was the magical date they gave me. Their mail began to assume a
gynecological cast. They prenatalized. They ultrasounded. (My daughter-in-law
apologized that the baby had modestly kept his or her legs crossed when they ultrasounded,
so the progeny’s gender was still a mystery.)
Later, she told me
confidentially that is would be a girl because its heart beat faster. Boy, did
mine ever. But such pagan auguries. Such tealeaf readings. How did we ever
manage to foal Michael, bereft of all such high-tech support?
The red-lettered ETA day
found me biting my nails. I wanted so badly to call and reassure them about the
delay, knowing full well such protestations would be too much, me-thought, only
adding to their anxiety. ETA plus one, ETA plus two. I was going to be biting
my knuckles from the fingernail side if the suspense lasted much longer.
Then the momentous call: “Hi
Granpaw! It’s a girl, Sonia Marie, seven pounds eight ounces. Pat’s fine, and
the baby’s an 8!”
What is this, a Bo Derek
index? I was outraged. “No, 5 is normal and 10 is perfect.” What do they mean,
I fumed, implying that my first-born-grandchild is less than perfect?
A few days later the first
batch of images arrived (my son is a photo / movie maker). Sonia touches her
mother a few seconds after being born. Sonia nurses. Sonia greets the
neighbors. My lord. If I remember, the first photo we took of Michael was at a
graduate school picnic when he had to be at least three months old. Media
metabolism speeding up. This weekend I was told they were videotaping Sonia.
Oh, what a mediated life that sweet child will live.
Son Michael with Granddaughter Sonia
The first person I called,
needless to say, was Fred in Trenton. “You’ve lost your monopoly,” I gloated.
He was very generous. Told me I’d love the experience, as if I needed to hear
that, having watched him on a slow drool for four years.
As soon as I hung up, I sat
down to figure out how I could communicate with Sonia in St. Paul. No problem.
I’ll write the little blighter a letter, and let her doting parents translate
it. I hurried so I’d be the first one to write her a letter.
“Dearest SMO,” I wrote—that’s
acronym for Sonia Marie Olson Hazard. “I’m thrilled to hear you made it. Welcome
to the world which has been waiting for you to grow in it. And while I watch
you grow, you watch this college fund grow and grow so that you can learn a lot
when the time comes. Love, Granpaw H.”
And I popped in a check, so
her parents can concentrate on raising her. It’s really exciting. I haven’t
felt this young in 35 years, since the time I helped conceive the father.
Passing it on. Wowee!
From Welcomat, August 13,
1986
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