Memories of childhood as a parent and grandparent

My partner, Wonono’s, daughter visited last week with her 10-month old, his first grandchild.  One of her sisters came as well, so the days were very full.  Hi daughter is an extremely warm and loving mother, cuddling her little girl, tickling her, playing with her on the floor, and her daughter is obviously a very secure baby because of all this positive attention.  Her grandfather could not get enough of her, carrying her around, playing various musical instruments for her, and frequently making her laugh aloud. She loved his beard, her eyes turning towards him whenever he entered the room.  Of course I thought of my own daughter, and her behavior with both of her boys the entire time.  She, too, hugs, kisses, and cuddles with abandon, and the boys are both open and loving as well.  The older, at almost three and a half, frequently calls me on the phone, which was startling at first.  Silence, and then a little voice, “Hi.”  I can hear my daughter in the background saying, ‘you have to say grandma, Gus, so she knows who’s calling’. Often I can barely hear him.  And then he does, and we  have a little conversation.  Last time, after asking me where I was (not in my office, but sitting on the couch with my lap top),  he told his mom he wanted to come visit again to see the plant behind me!  Warmed my heart, of course.  When his mother and her sister were little and I was divorced from their father, we became a safe little unit of three.  When one of us would laugh, the others would join in, even when we had no idea what was funny.  The laughter was contagious, and often we could not stop for a long time.  Recently we were sitting at my younger daughter’s dining room table when one of us – I don’t even remember who – started to laugh and we were off.  Her husband sat there watching us in amazement, his shocked face enough to keep us howling.  When we were finally able to stop, my daughter turned to him and still giggling said, “I told you we did this!” Which set us off again, of course.  The girls and I also cuddled all the time, happily ensconced in my bed in the morning as they tried to wake me up so I could make them breakfast, kissing, tickling, laughing.  Lots of laughing.  Wonono’s granddaughter laughs a lot too, though she is not even a year old.  My mother was  very affectionate as well.  I remember lying in bed with her at night watching both Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey – remember them? I, for one, was glad my father had to work on those nights long ago.  I got my mom to myself;  we both loved the snuggling.  Most nights we’d try to figure out how each show would end, and I was often right. Little did I know I would write for television as an adult.  I got lots of practice with story as a kid, and often had the endings of an episode before I had the beginning when I was first writing episodic TV in Hollywood, perhaps because of those nights figuring them out with my mom.  I am truly grateful that these patterns of love and warmth travel down through generations.  I could picture Wonono with his daughters as he walked around our house with his granddaughter contentedly resting in his arms, and often see my mother in my daughter as she parents her sons.  In these days with the world in such turmoil, and this country in disarray  with its widening income gap, this is very comforting indeed.