I’ve heard it said more times than I can count that “grandchildren change everything.”

My wife and I are living testaments to the truth of that notion. I think of it whenever someone says it.

You see, the primary reason my wife and I uprooted ourselves from the home we owned outright in Amarillo, Texas, and moved to the Metroplex was the birth of a little girl in March 2013.

She came along and, yes, changed everything for us. Little Emma became the focus of our lives.

She is why we moved everything, all of ur remaining possessions, to a new community. We are getting ourselves acclimated to our new digs, our new surroundings.

I feel the need to stipulate that we are immensely proud of the sons we brought into this world more than four decades ago. They both have grown into fine men. They are successful in their respective careers. They are respectful, polite, socially gracious, funny, articulate and they both know how to communicate well through the written word.

To suggest or imply, though, that they aren’t the reason we chose to relocate ourselves to a new community is not to denigrate or disparage them. One of them is Emma’s father. The other one still lives in Amarillo.

To say that we would have stayed put without a grandchild is not to disrespect our son who lives in a Dallas suburb. To say that we have moved because of our grandchild does not mean we disrespect our son who lives in the Texas Panhandle.

All it means is that we are intent on being a part of our granddaughter’s life. Emma’s arrival into this world of ours changed everything. 

She has injected an entirely new meaning into the world of retirement. It’s life, man . . . and it’s a good life, indeed.