I am a grandfather. Zoey Lou Bornstein arrived at 8:06 p.m. on Tuesday. Like the rest of us, she showed up disheveled and covered in goo. Her slightly-puffy eyes and a blood speck above the left one prompted my wife to comment that her granddaughter looked like she lost a bar fight.
Appearances aside, Zoey inherits a stout pedigree that includes tough Irish immigrants, a Norwegian cabin boy who endured blows from his uncle’s fists while crossing the Atlantic, and Holocaust survivors.
Even as Tuesday’s news unleashed a torrent of love and laughter from family and friends, my thoughts shuttled back and forth between Zoey, my daughter and son-in-law, and my grandparents.
At my age, my parents’ parents were retired or semi-retired and they lived life at a leisurely pace that seemed more common to the late 20th century than today.
For exercise, my dad’s dad donned a “siren suit” — basically an adult onesie — clamped a cigar in his mouth, and hopped on the mechanical ancestor to the treadmill. He strolled along the moving tread while a wide belt mounted to the machine shook and jostled his stomach in some optimistic but absurd attempt to melt off weight.
My mother’s father dressed in khaki tan trousers (he never called them pants) and long-sleeve shirts even on the most broiling Eastern Colorado days. I remember him manipulating a front-end loader’s controls or coaxing the choke in the feed truck while the smell of motor oil, cow poop and sweat assailed my nose.
My mother’s mother was a college-educated woman living in an era and a geographic area where advanced degrees held by women were few and far between. She taught music and played the organ in her small town’s movie theater where they screened silent pictures.
My father’s mother was a tough businesswoman who didn’t abide a lot of youthful nonsense and took my uncle’s rants about the Red menace in stride with my dad’s pontifications about ending the Vietnam War.
When I became a father I worried about paying the mortgage and keeping my job (I almost lost it). I fell to my knees, arms outstretched, on the day my daughter decided to walk for the first time.
What kind of grandfather will I be? Someone — I think my wife — asked me that question in a roundabout way months ago and I said I will be one who helps my granddaughter fall in love with books and reading.
I want her to know the thrill of getting her hands on a new book by a favorite author and opening the cover, ready to embark on an adventure designed to keep her up late at night or curled up in a corner ignoring chores and homework.
I look forward to her running to me with a stack of Beatrix Potter and Dr. Seuss (sorry, I’m a big fan of the one with the pink snow) books and demanding, “Read it to me again.” I fantasize about the day she waves “For Whom the Bell Tolls” or “Peter Nevsky and the True Story of the Russian Moon Landing” at me and asks, “You ever read this?”
When you’re a new parent, the mantle of responsibility falls heavily on your shoulders even as you relish the joy of holding someone who loves you with all of their tiny might.
When you are a grandparent — and, granted, I don’t have much experience — you look forward to hearing that little voice say your name, ask for your help, and tell you a story only a child can tell.
I guess I hope I will be the kind of grandparent who prompts Zoey to say, “I can’t wait to tell grandpa and Mimi what happened.”
