Down Home: ‘Re-gifted’ wonder

The best Christmas present I received this winter didn’t arrive wrapped in colored paper or nestled in a fancy bag. It didn’t lie under a tree or hang in a stocking. And Santa didn’t haul it down a chimney.

A blond-haired, blue-eyed little fellow with a huge grin delivered my favorite gift straight to my heart. His name is Ezra, and he “re-gifted” a truly precious present.

Ezra’s grandmother (Jody) and I (Marvo) spent parts of two weeks with him, first in our home and then in his, this past Christmas season.

One of the great joys of grandparenting is the opportunity to return—unbridled and unembarrassed—to the wonder of childhood. And that’s the present Ezra gave me.

A child lives completely in each moment. An adult measures a moment against the reflection of the past and the specter of the future. But a child focuses on the now. Absorbing every essence of what is happening in the instant. Unconcerned about what was or will be.

For a child, each snack, every game, each book, every toy, each video and every hug represents the sum-total of snackness, gameness, bookness, toyness, videoness and hugosity. What matters is what’s happening in that moment. And that gives the whole-hearted wonderer the capacity to savor and absorb its totality.

Wonder like that wanders through the phases of our lives. When we’re children, it comes to us pure and unbidden. It’s the way we know the world. Later, when we’re parents, we see it in our daughters and sons. We experience its purity in the laughter and, yes, even tears of our offspring, because their essence inhabits our hearts. And then much later, we rediscover that wonder in our grandchildren. We remember it almost like the tunes of our youth, which remind us how we once danced.

If possible, that wonder feels even sweeter to a grandparent than a parent. I think it’s because of the distance in the gap from childhood to parenthood compared to the gap from parenthood to grandparenthood.

A child gets to remain a child for many of the years leading up to parenthood. But a grandparent is an adult from parenthood onward. And adulthood wears down, whittles away and washes out wonder. Distracted by raising kids, maintaining a marriage, making the mortgage, paying the bills, keeping a job, building a career, living in society and recognizing mortality, an adult forgets how to see the world as a child sees it.

By the time their children bear children, grandparents are ready to wonder again. Believe me, it’s fantastic, surprising, luxurious and altogether delightful.

Ezra loves trains, and we sat in the floor beside his little wooden track, and we played trains by the hour. We pushed them over hills and around curves and through the train station. We added cars and changed engines. We placed loads on the flat-bed cars and repaired derailments. We said, “Choo-choo!”

When we weren’t playing trains, Ezra said, “Tos,” which means “Thomas the Train.” So, we pulled out my computer, got on the Internet, and watched videos of Thomas and his train friends.

Hour by hour, I lived in Ezra’s moment.

That gift is priceless.