A grandfather is allowed to philosophize if he wants to.\u00a0 Right now I want to.\u00a0 If you’d rather be out mowing the lawn, or possibly reading a book or going swimming, you’re welcome to go do it now.\u00a0 I won’t mind.\u00a0 Much.\u00a0 But if you’d like to hear about Rider’s Blessed Burden (which will be this grandpa phlosophizin’ some), then pull up a chair.<\/p>\n
We are all\u00a0born into preexisting webs of relationships and family connections.\u00a0 Everybody derives from and is related to a pretty long list of somebodies.\u00a0 Even a person from a “small” family has his or her share of folks who share a pint or a gallon of a common bloodline.\u00a0 I only have to look back a generation or two on my own relatively small family’s family tree to become impressed by the bigness of the gathered multitude before, beside, and within me.<\/p>\n
It can’t be helped, but tiny new little babies are instant inheritors of this, this, what?\u00a0 Gift?\u00a0 Burden?\u00a0 Maybe it’s a little of both, sometimes more one than the other.\u00a0 Being a lover and noticer of juxtapositions, things placed together that don’t seem to belong there, I can’t help but looking at sweet little Rider, my grandson, and wondering how he is going to bear up under the weight of all this inheritance which he instantly attained the second he was born.\u00a0 Or maybe I should ask: how will he fit in and continue the pattern, the intricate mosaic of people, places, and actions that led to his birth?\u00a0 His parents bring great bundles of history and lore and genes to the mix, but it doesn’t stop with them.\u00a0 This barely three-month old boy also bears the history and lore and genes of his parents’ parents, we doting, fawning grandparents.\u00a0 Multiply the complexity of two parents by adding grandparents to the equation, and you’ve exponentially increased the beautiful weight of it all.\u00a0 His parents and grandparents (and I include the grandparents’ children, Rider’s uncles and aunts, in this second group) have enough stories, enough history, enough genes and traits to search for in Rider’s features to last the child a lifetime.<\/p>\n
But guess what.\u00a0 Little Rider’s Blessed Burden is even bigger than that, a reality we celebrated, savored, and photographed a few weeks ago.\u00a0 Not only is Rider a child and a grandchild, a nephew and a cousin, he is also a great-grandchild.\u00a0 As if the lore, the tales, the actions and events and history and genes of two generations weren’t enough, there’s more.\u00a0 Weave in everything that great-grandparents (the parents of this rambling grandfather) add to the mosaic.\u00a0 Now we’re looking at Rider and wondering if his nose isn’t perhaps like his great-grandmother’s, or maybe his forehead, his great-grandfather’s.\u00a0 And what started out as the large book’s worth of his parents stories and expanded to a several volume set with the grandparent’s stories, now has become several shelves of stories and lore and names and dates and places and joys and sorrows and births and deaths and on and on.<\/p>\n
It was a pleasure watching my parents meet their great-grandchild.\u00a0 I found the miracle of my own children’s birth hard to grasp, this first grandchild’s, a wondrous mystery.\u00a0 I think my parents felt thrilled and amazed and possibly a little stunned seeing the child of their child’s child.\u00a0 Honestly, it was hard to take it all in.\u00a0 I loved watching them study Rider, looking at his features, checking, comparing, admiring.\u00a0 And loving.\u00a0 I think the great-grandparents enjoyed and treasured every moment they had with their great-grandson.\u00a0 I know I was glad to be a part of that moment.<\/p>\n
Rider’s blessed burden: it’s big alright.\u00a0 But you know what?\u00a0 I think that fast growing, quickly lengthening, keen observer of his world is up to the task.\u00a0 I think he’ll carry this weight just fine, learning the stories and adding his own.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG_0328.jpg\" "\\"Rider")
<\/a>Rider with a small bit of his blessed burden.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Relaxing with Great-Grandma<\/p><\/div>\n
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A grandfather is allowed to philosophize if he wants to.\u00a0 Right now I want to.\u00a0 If you’d rather be out mowing the lawn, or possibly reading a book or going swimming, you’re welcome to go do it now.\u00a0 I won’t … Continue reading