Meeting Our Grandchild - [The Courtship Series #20]

Transcript

Sweetheart, my love, you're just, you're spacing out again. No, it's fine. If you want to be lost in your thoughts, I don't mind.

You haven't said a whole lot though. I'm not sure what you're thinking. I'm all ears if you care to share.

Sweetheart, I'm always interested to know your thoughts. No matter how well I get to know you, there's always something new and unexpected that you come up with for me. Is it the flying that has you worried? Okay, okay.

No, I really don't get that worried flying in the wintertime. Well, I would say that I get more worried about delays and cancellations and ending up having to spend the night on a bench in the airport, or fork out the money for a hotel. But worried about issues with the plane? No, not really.

Honey, I've been on planes that they had to de-ice the wings before takeoff. We did just fine. It's true, but these accidents are truly, truly rare.

No, I'm not worried about it. Hey, look at me. You and I are going to be just fine.

But is that all that's on your mind? Because I know that you get nervous about flying in the wintertime, but you usually don't get this quiet. This is different.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking about. It's, it's a new experience for us, isn't it? You ready to meet grandma? I mean, you already are, but this is going to be our first time going to him and his wife and our grandchild.

It's, it's something that we've been waiting for, isn't it? Something that we've been building towards, if you think about it. I think that's just fine, sweetheart.

Remember what it was like when you were pregnant? Well, I'm not so much talking about the physical changes. I do remember you thinking that you, that you were a blimp, I think is what you said.

To me, you just looked beautiful. Sweetheart, you always looked beautiful. No, it's not just words.

You know it's true. I've shown you every day, every day since the day we met, how beautiful I think you are. But no, I'm talking more about the, well, we weren't sure whether we should be excited or afraid, right?

Very excited to become parents, but frightened of the implications. Didn't want to get it wrong. We didn't want to make mistakes.

We didn't want to harm that precious little life that was coming into our lives. And it was, gosh, it was nerve-wracking. I remember, I remember your dad sat me down and had a chat with me.

Just, you know, his advice about parenting, about being a father. And it's kind of, well, I mean, it's a lot like when he sat me down before we got married and had that talk with me. Baby, it was not embarrassing.

You don't need to be embarrassed by it. Your dad, he was very kind. He was very patient.

He was very sweet. It was very clear to me, though, that he loves his little girl. And then he wanted a man who was gonna take care of her.

He wanted to make sure I was that man. But yeah, before, before our little boy was born, he pulled me aside and talked to me about being a dad. It did help.

It did help. Of course, he couldn't possibly tell me everything to expect or how to react to every, every crazy thing our boy would do. But he gave me guiding principles, a lot of which I already had.

Because I had a great dad, too. But yeah, he offered me additional perspectives and ways to, ways to look at different things, ways to react, ways not to react. And it helped.

It really did. And now I think what we need to do is just take those lessons, the lessons that we learned as parents, and apply them to our new grandbaby. I was so excited to become a dad.

It was, it was one of the most beautiful days of my life. And one of the most frightening, too. Bringing that little life into the world, the scary world, and realizing that we were responsible, that I need to provide for that little boy.

But look what he's done. Look what he's chosen to do with his life. He's well-adjusted, he's happy, married to a wonderful girl who just made him a father.

He has his own life, and he's got dreams and hopes, successes and failures, things that he had to learn, things that he taught us. You know, there's, there's a part of me that's very torn, very conflicted. Well, it's pretty simple, really.

When he was born, he was a baby. I know, smartass, knock it off, just listen. He was a baby.

But in many ways, he still is. And he always will be to me. He's my little baby boy.

No matter how old he gets, he'll always be my baby. And so it tore me. I was very conflicted, wanting him to remain my baby forever, but also wanting him to grow and develop and live his own life.

And it really was hard for me. When he left his childhood behind and became a man, it was hard. But it was also wonderful.

Wonderful to see this life that we had made blossom into a strong, resilient, good man. We raised a good man. And I'm very proud of him.

I'm very proud of us and all of the other people that helped. He makes the world a better place. And he's just made our family a better one.

So as a grandfather, I think my role is to love that grandbaby as much as I possibly can, and respect and support that baby's mom and dad, our son and our daughter-in-law. I feel very blessed, very privileged. Because this is a gift, to have such a good son, such a wonderful man, that calls us mom and dad.