When Will was an infant, and then a toddler, I thought that the most exciting thing that could happen to me next would be his calling me “Doodad,” the name that I had chosen, and that had been approved by family councils, as the name that he would be brought up to call  me. I was wrong on two counts. First of all, he started out by calling me “Dadoo,” and I was afraid that this would stick, although his parents, I must point out with profound gratitude, never went with it. Eventually, he did call me “Doodad,” but I was mystified by the lack of personal satisfaction for me that his doing so entailed.

Second of all, I never guessed what it would be like when he said, as he said this morning, “You are my grandfather.” Will is old enough now to be analytical about things, and I realized that his acknowledging me as his grandfather was very like his speaking of his parents by their proper names, “Megan” and “Ryan,” as though these were secrets; he knows perfectly well that he’s not supposed to use them. Later, I would  laugh to myself — I am preternaturally this kind of humorist — at how the recognition scene might be read melodramatically. Picture Elizabeth McGovern in Tune In Tomorrow: “Only now do I find that this nice old man whom I took to be a friendly neighbor who was always there for us is [she spits]— my grandfather.” As though “Doodad” had been meant to conceal a horrible truth. Very funny. But of course that’s not how Will meant it and it’s not how I felt it. You’re my grandfather, he said, fixing our relationship in the most absolute terms conceivable. I burst with something like pride. It was like pride insofar as he was calling me his grandfather. It was unlike pride in that I felt unworthy of the role. As I believe anyone, presented with a grandson as magnficent as Will, would feel.

Pride, shmide. I’m the luckiest man in the world. Certainly one of the two luckiest grandfathers.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 at 12:20 am.