Blog 2878 – 09.16.2023

I Love You Through And Through

As a boy the great love of my life was my mother. Oh I loved my dad, my little brother, the only grandpa and grandmother I ever knew, my aunts, uncles, all my cousins, and my friends, but the great love of my life was my mother. Boys have a tendency to love their mothers best as girls do their dads.

In my teens the center of my affections shifted as I searched and thought I had found “a girl just like the girl that married dear ole dad” so to speak.” Much and as deeply as I loved my mother this new depth of emotion was all consuming and overwhelming at times. I married four times each time believing it would be for life. Only the last one turned out to be. Last month my lovely and loving wife Linda and I celebrated our thirty fourth wedding anniversary. Has it always been smooth sailing? Hardly, but we agree on one thing if nothing else, we love each other through and through.

I was almost thirty years old when my daughter Emily was born and almost forty years old when my son Jay was born. People who have not had children miss knowing a depth of love even deeper than the intimacy of romantic and marital love. As that little child grows your heart must grow too to make room for them in your life and those growing pains are painful and pleasant at the same time. Most of my friends had grandchildren long before I did and they would say things like, “You just don’t know how deeply you can love till you hold your first grandchild.” I laughed to myself skeptically, thinking that I had always had a poet’s heart and knew love through and through, its heights and depths completely.

One month and eleven days ago I completely changed my mind and felt my heart begin to grow again with the arrival of Emma Grace my granddaughter. I often wondered why they use the word grand in front of daughter to denote a second generation child. I think I am beginning to understand. I am so glad and grateful that I lived long enough to know what being a grandpa means. I think I might like to stick around to see what being a great grandpa feels like.

Angel, Emma Grace, I love you

Deeper, wider than ever I knew

It was possible for any dad to love

But that was all before there was you.

We think we have love all figured out

Fully explored it, through and through

Then some new kid with a knowing smile

Arrives to make a grand dad out of you.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fKP2GTOnjgWXBtRglBAIKuar-RYYlo2P/view?usp=drivesdk

I Love You Through And Through