Sweet child o' mine

We spent this past weekend in Palo Alto with Andy and Ami, enjoying the wonder of Eliot. It's a strange thing being a 20-year-old trapped in a 40-something-year-old body. I remember my reaction to becoming a grandmother - absolute joy at the thought of a new little boy to love but horror at the idea of being old enough to be a grandmother. I searched for cool names to call myself - "glamma," "goddess" - but finally settled on "grammy."

Strange how a child can come into this world and alter your life. I watched my husband sit on the floor with his grandson (he's the "gramps" to my "grammy") and build bridges out of legos for Eliot's Thomas trains. As Eliot yelled "breeeeeeedge" louder and louder, Michael made them over and over again, each time Eliot tearing it down but wanting another one to replace it. At one point, Eliot was so overcome with love that he kissed Michael's nose and almost ate it. Eliot's display of affection for me is a vibrating squeeze of my face or his little hand placed on my heart. We left that night, in love, not just with each other, but with this little boy.

Maybe the romantic thoughts of an afterlife are really about the continuation of life. Eliot will keep the memories of us alive after we're gone. He'll remember the fun times with grammy and gramps, sharing these memories with his children, and so on and so on, the same way my children keep my mother's memory alive.

As we drove back to Los Angeles, my eyes teary from goodbyes, I thought about the wonder of Eliot. It takes so little to amaze a child - a squeeky sound when his little finger touches your nose; a few legos put together to form a bridge; a simple game of "Where's Eliot?" Imagine if we could hold on to the wonder of it all. Time spent with this 17-month-old made me want to hold on to it forever.

I read excerpts to Michael from one of my favorite books, "Life After God," as we continued home in three-day weekend traffic:

"Sometimes I think the people to feel the saddest for are people who are unable to connect with the profound -- people such as my boring brother-in-law, a hearty type so concerned with normality and fitting in that he eliminates any possibility of uniqueness for himself and his own personality. I wonder if some day, when he is older, he will wake up and the deeper part of him will realize that he has never allowed himself to truly exist, and he will cry with regret and shame and grief.
And then sometimes I think the people to feel saddest for are people who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder -- people who closed the doors that lead us into the secret world -- or who had the doors closed for them by time and neglect and decisions made in times of weakness."