Nicole and Me

I woke up this morning to a text message from a friend that went: "A grandfather was walking through his yard when he heard his granddaughter reciting the alphabet in a tone of voice that sounded like a prayer. He asked her what she was doing. The little girl explained: ‘I am praying but can’t think of the exact and right words, so I am just reciting all the letters in the alphabet, and I know God will put them together for me. You see, grandpa, He knows what’s in my heart’. Have a blessed Sunday!”

I immediately thought of my only granddaughter Nicole in far-away California and a little story about her that Nico my son told us recently. The story goes that sometime ago, Nico caught Nicole during her bedtime mumbling names like she was calling them in a roll call. When Nico asked her what she was doing, Nicole simply folded her fingers and started reciting: “Mommy…, Dada…, Wowa..., Wowo….’ Nico realized then that she was praying after all and was reciting our names to God -- a nightly ritual she had learned from her grandmother Thelma while Thelma was visiting with them last March.

The text message also made me run to my computer and googled whether today is Grandparents’ Day. True enough, some parts of the world like the U.S.A. and Canada are observing Grandparents’ Day today, Sunday, 07 September 2008. Here in the Philippines, I am not aware of any observation of a day for grandparents. In any case, I like the feel of being a grandparent, even if I am doing grandparenting only from a distance.

I remember my days as a grandchild and my relationship with my maternal grandparents (the only grandparents I ever knew). In those days (60 years ago!), I was expected most of all to pay them respect and courtesy. And that was it. I stood in awe before my grandparents and I feared them. I was expected to behave at my best whenever they come visiting with us in our place or when we go visiting with them in their hometown.

Today things have changed. As a grandparent I do not expect to be shown courtesy and respect anymore simply by virtue of the fact that I reside on that particular branch of our family tree without some effort on my part to respect my grandchild, to earn her respect, and to look at things from her point of view. But I know that I am now in a position to receive genuine respect based on my grandchild's love for me, and not merely as an outward show of "manners" based on her fear of punishment from me or from her parents. Today too, I no longer need to take up the thankless role of the "feared elder" waiting passively for an empty show of respect. I am now free to play the more active role of a close, loving grandparent, with the emphasis on "grand"! Even if only from a distance!

Nicole is now in that stage that experts describe as the age of the“Terrible Twos”. According to her parents, she can be an imp at one moment and an angel the next moment.

I interact with her only through the computer but I also get to see her ever-changing moods. Sometimes I get a chance to play “hide and seek” with her and I also get to see her perform every new act she has just learned in school whether singing, dancing, counting, reciting the alphabet, and what not. But there are times too when she is in no mood at all to see me no matter how much cajoling she gets from me or her parents.

Recently I received a gift from Nicole. It is a white pillow case with her masterpiece of an art! Splattered all over the pillow case are her hands and feet patterns in different colors. On it are the words “To Lolo Danny, I love you! Nicole”. Of course, I know that Cecile, her mom, helped her do it. But just the same, the gift elated me.

Now I can sleep tight using Nicole’s pillow case and knowing too that she prays and cares for me, her grandfather!