An outing under the new rules
Yesterday – I believe as permitted under the latest Government rules/advice – I travelled to Oxfordshire in order to see my daughter Grace in the flesh for the first time since she formally announced to the world that she was pregnant and due to produce in late September.
It is, of course, one thing to see and catch-up with someone live on one’s smartphone or computer (that is, if one can work the technology) but quite another to sit within two metres of them in person. It was a momentous occasion for both of us and on my drive home afterwards I had plenty of time to consider this milestone in the round.
I’ve posted previously, more than once, on my theory that (whether we appreciate it or not) human beings spend their lives learning new things – my regular dinner-party example being the occasion that Grace, aged seventeen, invited me to attend a school play in which she was double-participating as lighting director and one of the four principal characters.
My epiphany of the moment occurred about ten minutes after the lights had gone down and the action commenced.
To that point – possibly because of my inadequacies as a human being or indeed as a male – I had carried out my parental duties largely on the assumption that my offspring were dependent little creatures whom I would necessarily be required to guide throughout their lives because of my greater knowledge and experience of everything.
Suddenly I was confronted by a much deeper ‘revelation’.
It is a matter of record that yours truly had been born to this world laden with a staggering array of gifts by which I would potentially going impress my fellow Man during my time on Earth. However, even I would have to admit that an innate genius or indeed skill at the dramatic arts was never one of them.
That night, as I sat in a darkened school hall surrounded my fellow parents, pupils and teachers, I’m embarrassed to confess that – for the first time in my life – I appreciated the essential truth that each human being is a distinct individual capable of achieving whatever their combination of talents, drive, ambition and hard work (and good fortune along the way?) might justify.
To put no finer point upon it, it was the moment I ‘registered’ for the first time that Grace could do things that I couldn’t do – never mind do them as well as, or indeed better, than I could (as indicated above, the conceit I had carried with me ever since I first became a parent).
The throwaway punchline to my aforementioned dinner-party ‘turn’ on the subject was always “I did a lot of growing up that day”.
And it was true.
Last night on my trip home I reflected upon many things, not least the prospect of my approaching grandparenthood.
Back in my days of glorious youth, grandparents were white-haired, sometime frail or wizened old beings who bought you sweets, treats, birthday presents and ‘minded’ you at times when your parents had to be elsewhere and couldn’t perform the duty themselves.
They were also at times befuddled, confused, forgetful and easy to ‘wrap around your little finger’.
Later, when you reached teenage-hood and beyond (and if they were still around), they became more interesting family members.
Part of it was because they operated differently to your parents – and what’s more tended to see your side of things whenever it came to internal family disagreements or ‘stand offs’. Generally, they were more ‘forgiving’ and understanding of how young people saw the world.
I had two primary thoughts on my drive home last night.
The first was sheer amazement that, all things being well, I’m going to become a grandfather this autumn – not a development that my somewhat pathetic and ‘child-like’ attitude to life thus far has well prepared me for.
The second was that I have a whole hill of growing up to do over the next four months.
