Ready Or Not, Here We Go

I have two basically grown daughters. While it seems only yesterday since they were beautiful, tiny, wiggly, giggly bundles, it has actually been 22 years on the one hand and 19 on the other since they appeared, a couple of God's greatest statements of grace. It dawned on me a few months ago that I am, right now, only two years younger than my father was when I made him a grandfather.
Sobering thought! Me, I'm still a kid myself. Yeah, my girls are adults, but most of my friends and colleagues have little kids, many of them pre-schoolers (you know who you are!).
Three Wednesdays ago, I got a little reality check. It isn't happening in the order I would have preferred, but I'm going to beat Dad to the Grandpa punch: my older daughter is pregnant.
(Obligatory disclaimer: I know she isn't married; yes, I wish she was; no, there won't be a wedding before the birth; I have advised parishoners for almost 25 years that there is no need to follow one mistake with another; I have also preached throughout those years that in God's world there is no such thing as an illegitimate child--sometimes those sermons become maps for the inevitable roadtrips of life)
Sara asked me to go to her three-month doctor visit on Tuesday. So I made the surreal trek to the Baptist (Ouch!) Womens' Hospital with my little girl/soon to be mom on her own. And an ob/gyn who seemed like a genuinely good guy broke out a little mp3 player-type speaker and I heard my grandchild's heartbeat.
Since I already have the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth out of the way (and, I'm proud to say, all that was kept to an absolute minimum), I can now get on with the business of getting ready for this transition. I've seen the change in so many people, wondering what in the world could produce such differences in them. I'm already starting to understand. I've thought of several hundred things I've wished that I had done better or handled differently with my daughters; here's the chance to do better! I'm thinking hourly about my own wonderful grandparents and how they dedicated themselves to loving their grandchildren, with the guarantee of adoration that such dedication brings back. I'm thinking of how fully my parents have loved their grandchildren. I was divorced when the girls were 7 and 4. God bless my parents, with a special nod to Mom/Nana, they spent every summer vacationing with us so that I'd have the help needed to keep two little girls from missing out on things little girls shouldn't miss out on. I couldn't have taken them to Disneyworld at 9 and 6 without my mother's help. Some of those years I couldn't have managed it alone financially; didn't have to. They saw to that. As my grandparents had helped them before.
I have big shoes to fill. I pray that I will be as good for this child and others (hopefully) to come as Grandmother and Granddaddy were for us, and Nana and Granddaddy have been for my children and their cousins. I pray that I will have the quality of relationship with my grandchildren that I had into my 30's with my grandparents. I can only hope that when I'm gone, my grandkids will remember me as half the presence in their lives that Jim and Ann Fisher still are for me as I move toward 50.
A friend told long ago of his prayer during his wife's first pregnancy: "Lord, I don't care whether it's a boy or a girl; just make it a healthy baby." Then his older daughter was born with Down's Syndrome. While they awaited their second daughter, Bob said his prayer changed: "Lord, make me a good father."
I've long had prayers for my daughters: "Lord, let them find good husbands and have healthy children (in that order, please!)." Now, I'm doing better. These nights: "Lord, make her a good mom, and me, a good granddad."
Amen!