Manipulated grandpa

I am the sentimental type. I am banned from sending off any family member at the airport. I cannot even bear to watch the car leave with them.

The lady used to carry pictures of our grandchildren in her wallet. Not anymore. She has them all stored in her mobile phone. She doesn’t keep the photos just for those moments when she misses them, which is quite often, but also to show (brag) to friends as soon as they indicate the slightest interest on how far the family has expanded.

We are all proud of our grandchildren, not just Alma and I but almost all grandparents. Whereas we were very strict with our children, we are very accommodating to our grandchildren to the point of spoiling them. We know that they are manipulating us but are only too happy to oblige. Edgar Labella may be the vice mayor but he is putty in the hands of his grandsons.

I know that Chelsea, my youngest granddaughter, is hiding behind the door when I come home at night but I pretend not to notice and act scared when she announces herself with her imitation of a roar. She looks triumphant; I am ecstatic. It’s a game we will continue to play until she grows out of it, no matter how tiresome or stressful the day has been.

I have a friend who says, jokingly of course, that he wished he had become a grandfather first before he had children. But it’s true to a certain extent, our affection is stronger for our grandchildren or at least we think that it is. The late Judge Nino Gaviola once told me that our affection for the family is like water from a spring: as it travels, it gathers strength.

We have eight grandchildren, two each from our four children. Four are in Europe with their parents. Of course, I miss them. The late Jun Jereza used to tell me how his heart broke everytime his grandson, who lived in the US, told him how he missed him.

Like Jun, I am the sentimental type. I am banned from sending off any family member at the airport. I cannot even bear to watch the car leave with them. And it becomes more difficult when they are reluctant to leave such as when Maja, who lives in Warsaw, said she did not want to go home. When I told her that she had to because her family lived there, she stared at me and asked, “why we live in Poland?” Until now, the look on her face continues to torment me.

Edgar once told how he wept on his way to the hospital with a very sick grandson. It was as if the world was closing in on him, he said.

We worry about our grandchildren. When I learned that Maja’s elder brother Andrzej was being bullied in school, I prayed for him as I did when I learned that Louise had an accident while vacationing in Canada from Brussels.

We cry with them, too. When Clemence sobbed on my shoulder in a restaurant in Tokyo after my daughter glared at her when she spat out the food in her mouth because it was too spicy, my heart melted. When Chico fell and hurt himself because I wasn’t quick enough to hold his hand, I cried with him. And when Lee wept quietly in the bamboo garden in Kyoto because a cousin offended him, I brought him to a quieter place and also cried with him.

One afternoon, I woke up to see three-year-old Maggie standing beside me, a toy stethoscope hanging on her neck. “How are you feeling, Papa Boy,” she asked. “You’ll be all right. I’ll take care of you.” And Chelsea tells me everytime she wanted me to tune the television to Netflix, “come, on Papa Boy, you’re good, you can do it.”

Grandchildren say the sweetest things.