At 18 Days Old — Reflections on Meeting My Granddaughter

So, yes. Over the last five days I was able to go to New York City to meet my granddaughter for the first time. What a treat to hold her. To offer a bit of help to her parents, my daughter and son-in-law. What a treat to feel tenderness wash over and about. To feel my newly arrived grandfathering feet underneath me. What a treat to know life flowing in this way.

Prosed poetry is a goto form of reflection for me. So, on the plane from Newark, New Jersey to Salt Lake City, Utah, I found myself coaxed by a few words of sense-making and celebration.

At 18 days old
it isn’t words articulated that soothe.
Rather, a kind and gently offered hum carries it all.

At 18 days old
perhaps this little one is imprinting us as much as we are her.
To love, to kindness, and to inherent tenderness. 

At 18 days old
I’m guessing she wishes us to catch her arriving soul.
To give her the tiniest of guided starts. 

Yes. Grateful. Moved. In many of the stereotypical ways as a new grandparent. But I would also say, awakened beyond the poignancy of meeting a new granddaughter for the first time. Awakened to wishing loving, kind, and tender learning as human beings, in another kind of hum that also carries it all.