The joyous gift of grandparenting
IN the past couple of years, whenever I would call a friend after office hours to discuss an unusual medical case, he would often say that he was busy playing with his grandchildren. We would confabulate the next day.
Recently, when I informed him of my daughter being blessed with a girl, he welcomed me to the ‘grandpa’s club’, as he called it, and warned me that my life would soon change. It indeed has changed! I soon scheduled a trip to New York to be with the new arrival. Holding the bundle of joy in my hands, I experienced varied emotions of pleasure, gratification, gratitude and love. Meeting the happy parents was an antidote to fatigue and jet lag.
My three-week stay was over in a flash. Cuddling the baby, having her in my lap, trying to humour her and feed her and attempting to talk to her while admiring the God’s gift occupied all my time. Each day was special as I witnessed changes in her appearance and her attempts at smiling and trying to cling to her mother.
Soon came the unexplained bout of crying, described as colic. Despite being a gastroenterologist myself, I could not fathom what could cause it. I tried to recollect without any success if my own daughter and son had colic and how we had handled it. The baby’s doctor had no remedy. Google suggested ‘gripe water’ or probiotics. Luckily, as foreseen by family elders, the colic soon reduced in severity, allowing everyone some sleep.
Grandkids allow us to relive the moments we had lived with our own children. Recalling our own kids’ childhood, we do not remember the events as they unfolded, perhaps being so busy with the actual job at hand. As grandparents, you can appreciate the newborn growing each day. You can hold the baby when she is playful and hand her back to her mother when she starts crying.
I left the baby with a heavy heart, instructing her paediatrician mother how to ensure her well-being. Since my return, my favourite pastime is to check the daily feed of photographs and videos time and again. Mobile phones and video calling have made distance and time irrelevant. Every little accomplishment or a growth milestone is promptly recorded and shared. On my suggestion, an email ID has been created for the baby and all her pictures and comments from the family are promptly posted there to give the little one a peep into her infancy when she grows up.
I can’t express myself any better than with this quote by author Joy Hargrove, ‘One of the most powerful handclasps is that of a new grandbaby around the fingers of a grandfather.’ Yearning for more, I have already booked air tickets to have my next meeting with the baby.
