Our family had gathered in the large living room of a California beach home we had rented for a week this past summer.
It was our last night there, and if by some random chance, all sixteen of us – my wife, my two daughters, my one son, their spouses, their eight children, and I – wound up in the same place at the same time.
With no particular plan in mind, I started by saying something I admired about each person. When I finally got to my wife, I said, “I would give my life for your grandmother.”
There was this moment of complete silence on the part of the grandchildren. It was as if they heard something so completely novel it took them a second or two to process the words.
I turned up the volume. “Yes, I would gladly give my life for her.”
The silence did not easily end. I had said this very same thing to my wife many times in private, but not, to my recollection, in a public setting, and especially not in front of our grandchildren.
I think it was my daughter in law who broke the silence by saying, “It’s now time to say something nice about grandpa.” She started it out, “grandpa sees the good in people.”
It was now the grandchildren’s turn. It started out kind of slowly. However, by the third one, there began to be a competition who could think of the funniest thing to say about grandpa. I think there must have been some kind of rule in all this: don’t say anything predictable, definitely nothing mushy, and outrageous was acceptable.
The night ended in high jinks. Laughter was loud, and jokes flowed out like a nice stream of warm water.
Oh yes, one of the more shy of the grandchildren came up to me afterwards and said with emotion in her voice, “I feel the same way about my cat who died.”