Grandchildren have been the greatest joy of 2020
Aswe approach the end of 2020, many I talk to are saying this year can’t end too soon.
And for good reason. The year 2020 has been filled with a lot of noise and friction we would like to forget.
An ugly impeachment. A one-of-a-kind presidential election. Unprecedented and deadly forest fires erupted across the American West. An airborne pandemic— a novel coronavirus, the deadliest of the past 100 years— swept theworld, while infecting more than15 million Americans and killing more than 285,000, with more to come.
The effects of the coronavirus have devastated many of our nation’s families and small businesses, but especially those in their bonus years who have absorbed more than 80 percent of the deaths.
But it’s not all gloom and doom, not even for most of those directly affected by the disruptions and life quakes of 2020.
We are blessed to live in a great nation with a strong civic order— i.e., a civil society dominated by private enterprises and civic institutions such as houses ofworship, neighborhood associations, service organizations, and tens of thousands of voluntary associations. When I think about the year just ending, like others, we’ve experienced economic and social disruptions. However, the first memories of the past year that flash across my mind are ongoing experiences as grandparents to Adelyn, age 5, and Lillian, age 3.
I love being a grandparent. Grandpar-
enting is certainly among the greatest joys ofmy bonus years, and something I share withmy wife andmy adult children, including the parents of our two grandchildren.
Because our grands live close by, we see them often, and it’s not unusual to have them for at least part of aweekend, which is a delight for us and a respite opportunity for their parents.
When the grands are around I’m often reminded of the late Art Linkletter, one of the pioneers of talk radio. Those in their bonus years will remember “House Party,” a live talk showhe hosted on CBS for 26 years, five days a week, and later on, his “Kids Say theDarndest Things” which ran for 19 years.
Kids do say the darndest things, so as our grands began to talk, I started to keep a journal of their utterances. Some are pretty good. Here are a couple that helped brighten the year 2020 for me and Mary Sue.
A few months back, in October, as Iwas helping Lillywash her hands, she looked at me and said, “You are old. You are going to die.”
When I asked her howshe knew that, she told me about a lady whowas old and who had died.
So, I then asked, “What lady are you talking about?” she said, “Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She died for all of us.”
I said, “Lilly, that sounds like Jesus.” She said, “Yes, Jesus died for everyone, but so did Ruth Bader Ginsberg.”
Then I asked, “Did your mother tell you that?” “No, mymomma sent flowers.”
This utterancewas important for another reason: Thiswas the first time either grand has mentioned death— at least that I’m aware of. Just matter-of-factly, not with any fear or remorse.
Another. Just before Thanksgiving, Mary Sue and I took the girls toHomestead Gardens in Davidsonville to see the Christmas decorations, including the multilevel layout of operating model trains and spectacular scenery. We arrived late in the afternoon, shopped around, watched the trains, admired all the greenery, and bought a few things.
Aswewere preparing to leave for home, the skywas dark andwe could see the new moon, a beautiful view with all the surrounding trees and decorations. I pointed to the silver sliver of the moon and said, “Look! There’s a fingernail moon!” After all, that’s whatwe’ve called a newMoon in our family for at least three generations.
Adelyn said, “Papa, that’s not a fingernailMoon. That’s a CrescentMoon. Didn’t you learn about moons when youwere little?”
Since that evening when I revealedmy ignorance of the CrescentMoon, I amnowfrequently tested to see just how much I do know. These tests have included quizzes on the major bones of the human body, the animals of the ocean, and the names of the planets in the solar system— including whether Pluto is really a planet.
One more. We recently experienced the “knowyour flags” incident. Fromtime-to-time, we have house guests from other countries. Whenwe do, it’s our custom at mealtime to display a table-top American flag along with the national flag of our guests’ native land.
A fewweeks ago, Lillywas playing inmy home office while I wasworking, and she picked up two desk-top flags frommy bookcase— an American flag and an Australian flag. She said, “See this flag? This is a ‘Marycan’ flag. It’s my flag. This is a British flag. We beat them in awar. But nowwe like them.”
All this served to remind me that while politics and forest fires affect our lives, nothing is more important than family and especially the upbringing of little children.
So, despite the trials and tribulations of 2020, we should not discount the many blessings that come from aging in America, especially our many opportunities to help shape the next generation.