“Dad, I want to go with you,” Lauren said to me. The days were spiraling down toward the Christmas holidays, and it has been my habit in the past to travel to New Jersey to spend time with Lauren’s sister Lisa, and the first two of my grandchildren. Lauren’s daughter — my newest grandchild — was 7 months old, and she had never spent a moment with the two cousins produced for me by her aunt. When presented with the prospect of a 10-hour drive with an infant, well, as a man is wont to say — it seemed like a good idea at the time.
My granddaughter arrives at my apartment at 6:30 a.m. each weekday with enough clothes, toys and goods to supply a small city of children; these things leave with her at 6:30 each evening, and the process is repeated four more times. Some items have taken up a semi-permanent residence in my space, but bags of toys, books, diapers, wipes and salves, medicines, food and formula and bottles, slobber rags and changes of clothing arrive and leave. And all of those things were packed into a small car that left Irvington at 11:20 p.m. the night of December 21st.
My first two grandchildren were not told that we three kings were coming. Ten-year-old Imani was purposely kept in the dark as her Christmas list had on it, “See the baby.” This was also at the top of her mother’s list of Christmas wishes, but Lisa told her that the timing was poor and the distance too great to make that happen. But after having spent 14 hours on a ten-hour drive, we few — we tired and bedraggled few — pulled u p to the apartment in Cedar Knolls, New Jersey at about 1:45 p.m. on December 22nd. Imani was surprised and delighted; Xavion was 14-year-old man-child smilingly curious, and Myah was glad to be freed from her car-seat. And it was on her own birthday that Lisa first got to see her niece. In this way began eight days of joy.
Myah was encouraged to demonstrate her spitting skills and arm aerobics while being passed from arm to arm, from aunt Lisa to cousin Imani, back to aunt, to cousin Xavion, back to aunt, to cousin, to mother? Yes: Mom got a hug or two. “Peek-a-boo” was played and enjoyed except when Xavion boomed his bass at Myah. And her daily caretaker was sent to the sidelines, where he performed his “Cool Papa” chauffeuring duties, making sure his grandson got to his basketball practices, both before and after Christmas. On Christmas Day, my son-in-love, Bing, cooked a small village worth of food, and “Grandma Oohs” — my first bride — came to see her daughter’s newest toy. And toy she was, for Lisa, who surrounded Myah with her body as often as she could, and when she was able to wrestle her away from her own daughter.
Lauren, Myah and Cool Papa set off toward Indiana at 4:00 a.m. on December 29th; Imani demanded of her mother to be awakened to say goodbye, but when she awoke again later that morning, she did the “ugly cry” after she realized that Myah was gone. (Not Cool Papa, not Auntie LoLo: cousin Myah.) The three kings did not get back to Indianapolis until 6:30 on the evening of the 29th, tired but happy that sisters, cousins, children and grandchildren had been accorded the opportunity to share a precious time.
I think, though, that the next time we gather together, it should be after having spent two hours in the air, and not fourteen hours over land.