If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there
to hear it does it still make a sound?
She is on her back, smiling. Perfect coloring–sort of pink—and no blemishes. Five tiny fingers jut from her hands, each flapping gently in the air.
“How’s Haley?” my friends ask. They can read my mind.
“Eight weeks…and beautiful!”
“How do you know, since you’ve yet to see her?” (Inquiring minds HAVE TO KNOW). “Cannot the blind value art?” I respond, and continue…
“She cries a lot, and whimpers ‘til she’s held. Rocking helps…singing too—“
“How do you know?” they cut me short. “She is miles away.”
This time I interrupt: “Please!!!…I still hear an infant Michael on Wrenford!” (My mother, without the hearing aid, dead a year, still hears Michael on Wrenford)…
”And she has that baby smell— a bit of talc, a bit of diaper…the bittersweet, yet pleasing “Scent Of A (Newborn) Woman.”
By now the throng quiets, but NOT ME.
“You know,” I point out, “Her skin is soft and smooth—firm yet agile, like a nice jell-o mold on YomTov. And her eyes—sometimes they’re that blue my Dad had, and then sometimes…”
My audience is dwindling….rapidly.
“You’re a nice guy Bruce, and all that….but the kid’s in a Long Island crib and you’re sitting here at a Starbucks in Cleveland. How could you possibly know?”
I put down my coffee cup, lean forward and smile.
“Because I’m her grandfather.”
yes you are and she’s lucky to have you!
Well said, but did you ever hear of airplains?
I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND…LENNY HAS A GRANDSON, BORN IN DECEMBER, (LIVES IN LYNDHURST) AND WE HAVE ISSUES IN OUR FAMILY AS WELL. “OUR” KIDS ARE “OURS” UNTIL THEY MARRY….WE SHOULD TALK