THE FIRST GRANDCHILD

My mother-in-law used to say that there is something special about the first grandchild --- it wasn’t that she loved Ashley more than the others --- it was just that because she was first, there was something about her that made her different from all the others. I would have to agree with her, and because my beloved T² has taken so much grief in the comment section lately from his mom and aunt, I decided to write about him today.

(By the way, I hope all the readers are checking the comments as well as the posts because the various members of the family are putting wonderful ones on sometimes several days after the blogs are posted. The one I referred to above occurred after I wrote about the NT Club.)

When Ashley first told me she was pregnant, I was not happy, not because I didn’t want grandchildren, I longed for them. The reason I was sad was because they lived in Tulsa and I thought it would be torture for me to have a grandchild I couldn’t see whenever I wanted. (And it was!)

Ashley called me early on November 19 to tell me that her water had broken and she was waiting for Mike to get back into town to drive her to the hospital. He was driving back from somewhere in Arkansas and would be there soon. She was in labor all day and finally the doctors did a C section and delivered a 12 pound 4 ounce boy, a hospital record. How I wanted to be there, but I was in school and would have to wait a week until we could drive out for Thanksgiving weekend.

That little boy was so fat and had such dark hair that he looked like a Native American baby. He grew out of that look and became tall and slim, but at that time he was all folds and fat, so much so that he could hardly open his eyes. But all I wanted to do was to hold him and never put him down.

I was to see him at Christmas and several other times during that first year and every time I couldn’t stand for him to leave. He was the cutest, sweetest baby I could ever hope for. The first big heartbreak came when he was about a year old and Ashley told me they were moving to Phoenix. Tulsa was a one day drive, Phoenix was three. At that time I absolutely hated to fly, so I began investigating ways to get there that were not by plane. Twice I rode cross country by Amtrak, an experience I really enjoyed, even though long and tedious. But it was worth it to see my Tommy at the end and also Jordan, who was two years younger than he.

Then came the time that Ashley and Mike told us they were moving to Hong Kong for a few years. If I thought I was heart broken before, I didn’t know what the word had meant. I remember taking Tommy, who was about three, outside where we looked at the moon together while I taught him the song,

“I see the moon, the moon sees me,
The moon sees the one that I want to see.
God bless the moon and God bless me,
And God bless the one that I want to see.”

I told him that when he got to his new home to just look at the moon and remember that I was looking at it too and we could think of each other. If this sounds sad, it was. It was a very difficult time for me. I had always thought that the ideal life for me was to raise my children and have them all settle nearby where I could see the grandchildren often and be on hand to help out whenever I was needed.

But that’s not the way it worked out, and I have had a very full life going to school and teaching. And I never would have gotten to see Hong Kong! Yes, Brenda and I did fly out to see all of them and it was a great experience. We even went into China for a day. But the best part was being able to see Tommy, Jordan, and Bailey, (the latter I had never seen before because she had been born in Hong Kong). And after three years, they came back to Phoenix where they have been ever since.

All of my grandchildren are unique in their own way and I enjoy them immensely. We have all taken trips together and have had many wonderful shared times. But I say it again, there is something I cannot explain about my feelings for Tommy; I love all of them dearly, but he just happened to be the first and that was special.