On the Yellow Brick Road

Olivia Paulette Short, nineteen inches long (tall?), six pounds, five ounces, a wee child born in the wee hours of August 18th at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where her mother (Major Courtney) teaches history and her father (Major David) is executive officer of West Point’s Center for Enhanced Performance.

Those are the particulars. Oh. As you can see, she had a bit of hair and is a very good looking kid. Her father drove the wrong way through the Washington Gate at the Academy getting to the hospital. A “wrong way,” or “rebel” imprinting?

Passages. Milestones. The Yellow Brick Road of life.We went off to kindergarten, were Boy or Girl Scouts, went to camp, became teens, went on our first date. Leaving high school behind was literally a “commencement,” the first big one. There were teen jobs, hoeing weeds out of sugar beets or lifeguarding. Or something else.

College. War. Jobs, good and bad. Weddings, kids, now the first grandkid.What’s special about grandchildren? We had kids, we loved them, and they followed the Yellow Brick Road as we did, the same but different, of course. So will Olivia, with whatever is different for her, and about her.

I think what is special is that grandparents can comprehend their own mortality. Our grandchildren are our immortality, we know that. Our children come too early in our lives for such an understanding.

Children were loved and challenged. The results of that nurture (tough love, sometimes) are clear in their success.

Now they have to do the same – or better – for Olivia. Grandparents? We can dote, we can hope, now we can even see decedents far beyond the middle of this century.

But as much as we fit that stereotype of grandparents we are not who will set Olivia on her own Yellow Brick Road. Only Courtney and David will do that. It’s an awesome responsibility.