I have introduced you to Emma Nicole, our granddaughter. She’s now 4 years of age and she’s growing way too rapidly.
Soon — hopefully even sooner than that — we plan to relocate nearer to her and her parents and brothers.
But last night at a Christmas party my wife and I attended, we got to experience something that I found oh, so very refreshing. We ran into a couple I have known for many years. He is a lawyer, she is a former elected official in Amarillo who does some business consulting around the area.
They are brand new grandparents. Their grandbaby is now three weeks of age. They are giddy beyond the stars, the sun and the moon. Their granddaughter lives in Austin with her parents — our friends’ son and his wife.
And guess what they’re planning to do? They’re making preliminary plans already to pull up their deeply rooted Amarillo stakes and move to the People’s Republic of Austin for the expressed purpose of living near their little baby granddaughter.
“I’ve made many trips already,” Grandpa told me last night as we laughed and shouted above the party din. “My wife is likely to drag me down there” to live, he said. Yeah, right, bub. There will be little “dragging” going on here. I heard it in his voice.
We have one thing in common with these good folks, apart from our shared world view of political and public policy matters. Their granddaughter is their first, just as Emma is our first “biological” grandbaby.
I’ve regaled many of our friends and family members over recent years about our joy at becoming grandparents. I’ll continue to do so at every opportunity. Heck, I might even look for opportunities.
Last night’s shared joy with a lovely couple, though, was a relatively new experience for us. We were given the chance to receive their exuberance at welcoming a treasured young one into their lives.
As the bumper sticker says so eloquently: If I had known grandkids would be so much fun, I would have had them first.
