Just Passing Through

God did not intend the human family to be wafted to 

heaven on flowery beds of ease. 

Frank Knox 

The kindness and affection from the public have carried me through some of the most difficult periods, and always your love and affection have eased the journey.

Princess Diana

A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to. ~Robert Brault

Traveled through Yellowstone National Park this weekend on our way home from visiting the kids and liked this shot of a little girl playing by the side of the river.  Children have so much to discover about life, and are interested in everything.  About the only thing a grandparent has to do is be the safety patrol, and that was easy enough.  Donovan was responsive to warnings, although a little uncomfortable with me hanging on to the collar of his shirt and coat with a death strangle as he leaned over the deep rushing water, a little too close to danger for my comfort.  My philosophy about raising kids has been distilled down to one thought.  There is so much that we have to say no to, that we should say yes whenever we can.  And a little healthy fear is a good thing.

Most poignantly was that it brought time with Grandpa to mind. The summers before and after I started school, as I remember it, my grandpa came to work for my dad.  I rode along while he delivered loads of hay about 50 to 60 miles in each direction from home.  We bonded while cooling off over strawberry milkshakes and chocolate covered ice cream bars.  And a couple of times, to my great delight, I got to steer the empty truck on our way home.  But mostly I just rode along for company.

My grandpa was somewhat of a family legend.  When he was a young father of two, my uncle and my infant mother, he was working at the quarry.  While underneath a truck working on it, someone got in it and drove away, unaware that he was there, and ran over his pelvis and legs.  The doctors told them he wouldn't ever walk again.  As Grandma told the story, when she needed to go somewhere, she would put a blanket on the floor, and Grandpa would roll out of bed and onto the blanket.  She would then drag him out to the car.  What happened from there, I don't recall having heard. Maybe someone else in the family can remember. I know that after the accident he drove the bus to the quarry that carried the men to work and back until he retired.  Then he and Grandma went to work at the college campus, she in the kitchen and he as a custodian.

I wonder now just how he came to be completely mobile.  It didn't seem like Grandpa ever had much to say about it.  One story I love to hear my mom tell, is that Grandpa would go in the house, lock the doors with the kids outside, and then spray them with the hose through the open windows.  He loved to tease and was pretty good with the guitar.  We begged him to play the old songs for us, and sometimes it took quite a lot of persuasion.  They came to visit us in Wyoming every year on their annual road trip across the United States to visit relatives back in South Carolina, where he came from with his mom and brothers and sisters on the train, because Grandma didn't want to raise the kids picking cotton.  They homesteaded in Washington, and family history recounts a pioneering story or two about useless husbands along the way.  And plenty of music.  Sometimes Grandma brought his guitar along, so he could sing to my kids, too.  They wouldn't let me make coffee for them in the morning, because they wanted to take us all out for coffee. And doughnuts.  Every day.  Could Jerry meet us?  Why, yes! Of course!

The sadness seemed to overwhelm me when I realized Grandpa could no longer remember all the words to Letter Edged in Black, and he smiled and pretended that was the end of the song.  But he could usually remember most of the Titanic and Under the Old Apple Tree and when he couldn't, he would sing over and over what he did remember, and smile when he was done.  Then Grandma passed away.  It was almost more than he could bear that he lost her, the car, his home all at once,  so we just cried together.  Saying goodbye to Grandpa wasn't really saying goodbye at all, because I only have to think of him, and he is here.

So following Donovan around was so different as a grandparent.  As parents, it seemed like our kids followed us around, then maybe took the lead at surprising times, when their talents shone and we reveled in the unexpected, like a whole rack of clothing in Herberger's falling over because my child was hiding and walking through the clothes and tipped it over.  I remember my surprisingly brave, tiny daughter climbing a very tall slide again and again.  I recall vividly carrying sons in my belly, puffing up steep hillsides to gather the hard-to-find wood for our stove, and a cross country trek through underbrush, again up steep slopes.  And then going to sleep exhausted afterwards while Daddy had to feed everyone because Mommy was too tired.

I remember father and son fishing trips, where their heads were together, focusing on teaching how to bait the hook, how to cast the line.  There were sandcastles built from black sand that stuck to faces and shirts and diapers and sandles and toes, along the edge of the river on quiet Sunday afternoons.  Hot dog roasts.  Camping trips with rain soaked gear and tents, and the sun coming out and drying everything out, and making me very happy and cheering up everyone else, too.  Once we carved spoons out of wood because we had packed everything for our cookout except silverware.  We never seemed to forget the same thing twice. Appetites seem keener in fresh air, so forgetting the salt didn't matter as much as it would have at home, but forgetting the baking soda is rather a disaster for biscuits, wherever you are.  We heated water in a fire-blackened coffee pot, then washed dishes with borax soap and the smallest amount of water possible, and went home with everything we had just about as damp and dirty and black as it could get, but we had smelled the pine trees, heard the birds sing, and the breezes in the tree tops.  We had warmed our feet and hands over the fire as the temperature dropped, we'd snuggled in sleeping bags through the darkness, and slept with bear spray close at hand .

Watching Donovan while his mom runs an errand, I hope to get to know him better.  He's grown so much since we last were able to visit him, and now he's a little boy, not a baby.  He is independent and adventurous, delights in climbing over rocks and splashing a stick in water, lying down on the bank of the stream.  It is his idea to cross over a small, flooded bridge, feet protected by red rain boots, so I roll up my jeans, take his hand and a tentative step to make sure it's safe.  We cross over, and then back again, because it was strong enough, because it was there, because it was safe and different and fun.  Reveling in our joint accomplishment, we have a moment that is ours alone and we smile at each other.  My camera battery wanes and dies.  My SD card is full.  Yet while I regret the demise of my camera equipment as the lowering sunlight becomes more advantageous, I have a greater respect for the wisdom of a child.  As the fleeting moments pass quickly into goodbyes I am reminded that precious moments are not captured on film, but when a child takes your hand, and you slosh through a puddle.  It is more important to explore the splash of water than to capture it on film.  And best of all is to experience life through the eyes of a child.  I wonder what he will remember.

Affection is responsible for nine-tenths 

of whatever 

solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

C. S. Lewis

People might love themselves with the most entire and unbounded affection, and yet be extremely miserable.

Joseph Butler

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Having a two-year-old is like having a blender that you don't have the top for. ~Jerry Seinfeld

If we would listen to our kids, we'd discover that they are largely self-explanatory. 

~Robert Brault

Showing me Daddy's back-o. 

Love is not to be purchased, and affection has no price.

St. Jerome