new people, finding themselves

 

Grandchildren

what a gift it is to have children:

to seek to pay forward

the gift of one’s own life,

to help new people learn to find themselves,

what a gift it is to have grandchildren:

to watch the miracle repeated,

to witness the miracle repeated, 

with much less stress than the first time through,

with much more space to allow the miracle

to unfold with ourselves as spectators, as enthusiasts,

with less of the heavy lifting parents must pull off,

I attempt to imagine 

what God would have hoped to see

when self-determination worked,

when free will did not lose the way,

and the Garden could stay open.

by Henry H. Walker

March 31, ‘21