Forward and Back: 3 Months

Dear Jimmy,

My littlest bug. You are 3 months old tomorrow, and already, your namesake, my Grandpa, is gone.

Grandpa lived his 86 years to their fullest potential, and so, my Jimmy, you have a large legacy to maintain. Will you raise a generation of children? Will you work in the yard, toiling and snowblowing into your final year? Will you concoct a precise system for growing perfect tomatoes using PVC pipe, old t-shirts, and (pointedly vacant) recycling bins?

We were lucky to visit with Grandpa in the final month of his life. I wanted you to know him, Jimmy: to understand the thrill of riding the handmade, backyard swing at lightening speed, and to marvel that it had its own telephone. To run into the dining room and pause to select your favorite of treats from the candy shoppe. To taste the tangy pickles. To laugh at the bird tweeting beautifully from above Grandpa's comfy chair.

Grandpa was a model for us all, really. Devoted as a husband, Grandpa understood what a full-time job his wife had in raising her many children. He kept the fun in their marriage by bowling with her on a regular basis, and by sweeping her away to Nevis for vacation in their later, child-rearing years. I imagine their romance was alive til the end... I will never forget the snap of Grandma's purse opening or closing as she reached in to retrieve her standby shade of precise red lipstick.

A life pulses and breathes, Jimmy. And at its end, a life catches us off-guard, filling our hearts with memory and beauty and wonder.

I hope I can be a mother as he was a father. He kept his arms and home open to his children, showing us all how parenting only grows with children, never ceasing. Nothing could surprise Grandpa. By his final years, he had seen every joy and tragedy of life. He took a look at you, Jimmy, and said, "He looks like he'll make it." Then he waited for the next great joy of life to come, and it did. The birth of Peter, the conception of another great-grandchild.

Though I hated pregnancy, Grandpa never understood why I wanted it to end. After all, kids are much less trouble on the inside, he told me. :)

I saw the wisdom in Grandpa's life. He built his home as he needed it, he indulged when it truly fancied him (which wasn't that often). He poured cream on his cereal and answered requests without pretenses. He didn't seem to worry about what others thought. And yet, he did invest in God. He faithfully cared for his family, and cared for his family to realize God is the source of all our life.

It seems fitting that in the last month of Grandpa's life, Jimmy, you were baptized at a church where he attended high school.

I know this month's letter is a lot about Grandpa and a little about you, Jimmy. But now that you're smiling and looking around and starting to understand this world,
I am sure you will see the beauty in that.

Love,
Mama