Where the Joy Is

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

This summer Son #1 became a grandfather. He’s physically a big guy, about 6’ 5” with mountain biking muscles and a personality that fills every room he walks into. But for the last couple of months, he’s been sitting on the floor with a changing pad, a new diaper, and a package of baby wipes cleaning up the baby’s bottom, then bathing the baby, then talking to the baby—usually about politics or history or international business (he’s not much into the baby gibberish stuff). His granddaughter stares up at his face, listening intently, and soaking in as much information as she can considering she’s only two months old.

I admit she’s an adorable little thing—with dimples at her elbows and knees like her mother had when she was little. My neighbor in Kearns once told me that the Lord sends babies to us camouflaged in “cuteness” so we’ll fall in love with them. Otherwise, there’s no way in heck we’d ever put up with the time and energy it takes to care for those little people till they are old enough to care for themselves.

My granddaughter told me when she was pregnant and driving to work or out doing errands, she kept threatening other drivers under her breath. “I’m carrying a baby, People! Do not do anything stupid.” Or else. I remember feeling that way, too. Once Daughter #1 was born, I went from worrying about whether my shoes matched my outfit to being hyper-vigilant for the slightest sound coming from the bassinet. Becoming a parent is like breezing along on freeway called Ourselves, then taking a right turn onto a frontage road and discovering that a whole group of people who matter more to us than life itself live there.

Two weeks ago my husband and I were headed home from Son #6’s house after a visit when we got a terse call from him. “Mom, where are you?”

“About ½ mile from your house.”

“Can you turn around and come back?” There was a breathless pause and then a click.

“Nate! Nate!” I repeated, but the line was dead.

By the time we pulled back into his driveway, he and his wife–who was carrying their baby–were already headed to their car and backing out. I couldn’t imagine them leaving their four other children aged ten and under alone in the house. It was clear something was very wrong. He rolled down the driver’s side window long enough to say, “Accident. Baby kicked in the head. Stopped breathing. Blue before we could revive him. Breathing now but fading in and out of consciousness. Amber (his wife) trying to keep him awake.” I could see her in the back seat, the baby on her lap as she frantically moved his little body back and forth, patting each side of his face gently and calling his name.

A couple of hours in the emergency room found no lasting damage, thank heaven, but Son #6 was seriously shaken. “I’ve never worried about the lives of my children before,” he said. “Now I can’t stop.” He spent most of the next 24 hours holding his small son. “Somehow,” he told me later, “I just couldn’t let go.”

I know. I’d been there. When Son #1 was three, he toppled out of his highchair, slamming onto the floor and writhing in convulsions. I’d dealt with convulsions before. I had a college roommate with epilepsy who wasn’t consistent about taking her meds. A couple of times I heard her legs pounding against the wall in  the room on the floor above me. Racing upstairs, I’d find her body twisting and turning—totally out of her control. But it was nothing compared to watching my own child suffer. In that moment I realized for the first time how fragile life can be. And how little control I had over it. I still think of that instant as the turning point in my path to adulthood.

Son #1 is right to spend every minute he can with his new granddaughter. After she was born, he announced to his granddaughter’s other set of grandparents (who live right down the street from her) that he was fine with them taking her on the second Thursday of every month. The rest of the time, she’d be at his house. (Good thing the baby’s dad has parents with a sense of humor!)

Next week the baby and her parents are headed to a last semester at BYU Idaho. Son #1 is already trying to manipulate his budget so he can fly from Phoenix to Rexburg several times to visit. He gets it. There are no guarantees in life. He knows where the joy is.