I listened in wonder as a young man explained to me the workings of Apple’s iPad Air 2. The young man knew that I was fervid admirer of Apple products and that my MacBook Pro laptop computer was on its last, wobbling legs. He interviewed me to determine the ways in which I utilized my Mac, and was now showing me the new things that I could accomplish, albeit with a smaller, lighter piece of electronics. And later, when I thought of that conversation, and remembered the easy way with which the young man explained the complex machinations of the device, I smiled and thought, “My kid.”
More than 40 years ago a small miracle was wrought in Southern California, though the event passed unnoticed by most of the world. A child was born to parents who had been told that the blastocyst had little chance of burrowing into the uterine lining and developing into human life. When I held that girl for the first time, I thought, “My kid.” Sixteen years after that birth, I held my second daughter, and thought again, “My kid.”
A reader sent me an e-mail with a query about my daughters. He noted my use of the terms “eldest daughter,” and “youngest daughter” and wondered if there was another daughter about whom I had not written. I replied to the e-mail, telling the man that I used the terms as an aid to context, and as a way of identifying which of them is my “grandchild delivery device.” (My eldest daughter noted very early in her new motherhood that the delivery of a child into the hands of a grandparent changes all the names formerly attached to the mother; she becomes “mom, mom, mommy, mommy, mommy” mostly, but for me, a “grandchild delivery device.”) But I guess I have not written much about the event that occurred thirteen months after the birth of my second girl-child, when a son lay squalling in my arms, and I was astonished to hear myself saying again, “My kid.” It was the birth of this son that made me understand that a joyful life was possible with a child who was not a girl.
My son Chris is the one who, in the snap-the-whip game of life, pops off and flies into the grass. But he always jumps up and challenges the two women who preceded him in life, his two older sisters. Lisa is the only “big sister,” because he and Lauren are separated in age by only 13 months; when they were small, those months seemed like years. They are the same emotional age now, with a love for each other that makes my eyes leak when I think of it. I remember Chris as a young boy, pouting and saying that he would never be able to “skate like Lauren,” and years later, he was an expert on inline skates. Today, he builds bikes, and rides them as he imagines that Major Taylor might have. My kid.
In a conversation with a good friend, I said that my Christmas gift to my son was one of money, and she said this to me: “It’s too bad that you couldn’t think of something more personal. He put a lot of thought into the gift he gave to you.” My friend meant no harm, and I do not fault her for the sting of her comment, but still, I think: “My kid,” a phrase often in my thoughts, said with a smile, and which when said, describes one of the three people who have been great gifts to me.