When I was just a young father, I asked my own father once, “Can you love your children too much?” My Dad loved questions that gave him opportunity to give a bit of a speech. Dad was pretty good at putting questions into a context so that the question could be refined and then he’d often give a lecture about the history of the words we were using at the time and then finally he almost always found a way to cite bible passages and give a theological punch at the end of his speech. I recall there being a long, rather awkward pause as Dad gathered his thoughts. Finally, he said, “No”. I was so stunned that it felt like follow up questions would only prove I hadn’t listened to his single word answer.

I enjoyed being a father more than any other man I’ve met and now I’m a grandfather, I still worry a little that my love for my grandchildren might feel at times for them like I’m trying to pour the ocean into a thimble. It looks a bit like they accept that their grandfather is a bit mushy and pragmatically, they know well how to use this to their advantage. My 9 year old suggested recently that she might like a T shirt that said, “My grandfather never says ‘No’”. It’s a quality esteemed by my girl to the extent that she would like to advertise on her shirt yet she knows her Grandmother and her Mother are not so deliriously keen.

“How come it turned out that the world’s most beautiful kids became my granddaughters”, I asked my 7 year old while she was busy organizing the next bit of fun. The only way to talk to this girl is in middle of action. She would normally ignore my soppy rhetorical questions but this time, without even turning her head toward me, she said, “Cause you loved James.”

Listen to this little girl. For those of you with little kids, I promise you that every bit of love you pour into your children is forming your grandchildren and your great grandchildren. You may never meet these children and yet their life will be formed and flourish because of the bedtime stories you read tonight or the time you take for a trip to the park. Notice the wisdom of this girl cited nothing that I had achieved in life by way of material success or career. She found her own life and she flourishes, moving toward whatever her destiny might be because I loved James.

Graham

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