At each step, I miss him

Part 1

“Jake, don’t go too far away. Grandma will miss you,” I tell my 2 ½-year-old grandson on our first solo trip to the playground.

“Do you miss me yet, Grandma Patty?” he calls back in a playful voice.

“Not yet. I can still hear you and see you,” (if I switch my reading glasses to my distance glasses) I say.

“Do you miss me now?” Jake asks, his voice sounding fainter.

“I’m starting to, honey,” I reply, squinting in the sunlight, as I try to follow his rapid pace across the playground to the small basketball court.

“Now?” Jake asks, his voice disappearing into a whisper.

“Definitely now. I really miss you. Come back please.”

“No, thank you for coming back, Grandma Patty,” Jake responds in his best wellmannered voice.

“Jake,” my voice goes up an octave, “Grandma really needs you to come back, now.”

His young voice is just an echo now, “No, thannnk yoouuu…”

Jumping up rapidly, from the round red play table with built-in benches, I cause the table to tip, Jake’s favorite orange crayon to roll off the edge and my reading glasses to disappear. I am starting to panic. Almost 60 seconds have elapsed since I heard from him. I can’t find my reading glasses because I need reading glasses to see them. I cannot see Jake with my sunglasses. I let out a resounding, “Jake, where are youuu?”

From behind me, I hear his voice and realize he has done a semicircle around the playground. “Here’s your glasses, Grandma,” he says, retrieving them from the grass where they had slid off my lap. “Did you miss me?”

Part 2

This sweet little guy is now 18 and graduating from high school. Of course I will not embarrass him by cluttering this column with grandmaspeak praise, even though he deserves it. Jake is off to college in the fall, and, yes, I will miss him. But I look forward to the times he does a semicircle around whatever playground he is in and surprises me.