Blog 3525 – 06.29.2025

“The One Before the Other”

I heard a great quote recently. An older woman was talking to her daughter telling her that she needed to find a man and start making babies. She went on to say: “People my age have only two things to look forward to, death and grandchildren, and I want the one before the other.”

It is a bit of an over simplification perhaps, but in my case it is pretty spot on for even my desired to help my son acquire and develop his hundred acre wood dream is mostly so that my granddaughter and perhaps some future siblings can have a place with ponies and horses to ride, a place to escape from the big city and enjoy the wild woods with hiking, hunting, and fishing galore, and so much more.

That is a dream worth investing in, a dream worth living for and grandchildren are indeed that. My wife and I consider ourselves fortunate indeed to have lived long enough to see our granddaughter Emma Grace who will be two years old in a little over a month. What a delightful wonder she is.

In his famous poem High Flight, World War One British flyer John Gillespie Magee, Jr. describing the utter exhilaration of high flight wrote:

I shared with a dear friend who loves music in response to something that she put on Facebook about singing even if you do not have the greatest voice the concluding lines of my daily mantra:

“Come dance with me, come sing with me, come walk with me, come talk with me, come ride with me, come fly with me. Come follow me like you used to do. I can still show you Who and Whose you are.”

Playing with my Emma yesterday was for me as exhilarating and holy as High Flight and for those moments it was as if that I too had I put out my hand and touched the face of God. I hope I get to watch Emma grow into adulthood and witnesses as much as I can of her adventure in time and space. Whether I do or not, even this brief time has already added so much to my life and I am so glad and grateful that I got to experience “The one before the other.”

Your friend, fellow traveler, and Emma’s Papa,

David James White