July 20, 2002
Last week I became grandmother to the most beautiful baby in the world. Michael agrees, so that’s a majority opinion, not the biased blatherings of two doting grandparents.
Jake called us in the middle of the night and said, “I’m taking Emily to the hospital. Your granddaughter is on her way.”
Michael grabbed the pink teddy bear and I grabbed the pink hand-crocheted receiving blanket and off we went. In Michael’s plane.
“Pity the poor grandparents who have to fight traffic,” he said.
“Or fly commercial,” I added.
Oh, we were so proud of ourselves. It wasn’t until we got to Atlanta that we remembered our luggage. Sitting in the bedroom closet where it had been packed and ready to go for two weeks.
My darling husband and I looked at each other and cracked up.
“I prefer you without clothes anyway,” he told me, and I said, “You’re acting mighty spry for an old grandpa.”
We caught a cab from the airport and cracked grandpa/grandma jokes all the way to the hospital. By the time we got there, Emily was in the pushing mode, and we paced the hall like any two sane first-time grandparents.
Every five minutes Michael said to me, “Do you think Emily’s all right?” and I said, “Darling, women have been having babies since the beginning of time. Our daughter is going to come through like a champ.”
At times like that it’s wonderful to belong to the sisterhood of women, to be the keeper of secrets, the oracle of wisdom.
While we waited, Michael drank so much coffee that I told him, “You’re going to be up all night.” He gave me an incredibly sexy, for-my-eyes-only look and said, “Good.”
Lord, it’s a sight how this amazing man can ring my chimes. And me a grandmother.
Of course, Michael and I had already discussed our new status.
“We’ll love the baby with all our hearts,” Michael told me, “but she will belong to Emily and Jake. The three of them will be a core family.”
“That’s the way it should be,” I said.
“Being grandparents will not change us,” he told me. “Our relationship will still always be first.”
Call me selfish, but his declaration thrilled me all the way to my bones. Actually, call me the luckiest woman alive.
When I think of all the otherwise sane people who turn their lives upside-down in order to devote themselves exclusively to a child, it makes me realize how very lucky I am. I’ve even seen people who can barely stand each other, remain chained together because of progeny.
How sad. How tragic.
Life should be lived fully, with arms and heart wide open.
Anyway, back to our escapades in Atlanta.…
By the time our nerves were thoroughly frayed, Jake stepped into the hall with a huge grin on his face and announced, “I have a son.”
“You mean a daughter, don’t you?” I said, because naturally I thought the stress of childbirth had addled him.
“No, I mean a boy! Come inside and meet Jacob Michael.”
Oh, the look on Michael’s face! Priceless.
We went inside and Jake laid the baby in Michael’s arms. That’s the first time he’s cried since he came out of the coma.
The beautiful thing about my precious husband’s tears is that he’s not afraid of letting his feelings show.
“Look at the size of those hands,” he said. “And those feet. He’s going to be a fine mountain climber.”
“Or a great concert pianist,” I said, and when Michael handed the baby to me he said, “Another musician in this family would be wonderful.”
See why I love this man so.
Daniel and Skylar came to see the baby, and I could tell what they were thinking by the way they looked at each other. It wouldn’t surprise me if they start their family soon.
We left them with Emily and Jake while we raced to Rich’s and bought out the baby department. “My grandson’s not going home from the hospital in pink,” Michael said.
After our spree we checked into a hotel sans luggage, and got some funny looks.
“Let’s relax awhile before we call Hannah,” Michael said, so we stripped off our clothes and crawled into bed and you know where that led. Thank goodness.
Afterward we held each other close and Michael said, “You know what I was thinking the whole time we were in the hospital?”
“No. What?”
“How I could hardly wait to make love to you.” He kissed me, and one thing led to another.
It was dark before we called Hannah. On her cell phone.
She and Hunter are in Denali “living wild and free” as she puts it.
I’ve never seen her happier. She and Hunter are so much in love. He returned with her in May. They stayed at her cottage in the woods for a few weeks.
“I’m regaining my strength and Hunter’s painting,” she told me after they got back from Denali.
“Then what?” I asked her, and she said, “I’m going to the Everglades on assignment in June. Hunter will go with me. He’ll paint while I’m working. He’s getting ready for another show in October.”
“And after that?”
“If you’re listening for wedding bells, Mom, you can forget it.”
I guess I was, in a way, but knowing Hannah, I should have expected the unusual.
“Not really,” I told her. “I only want you to be happy, Hannah, and secure in that happiness. That’s all.”
“I’m very, very happy and completely secure. Don’t you know, Mom? Wolves mate for life.”
Hannah loves to shock, but I have news for her. I’m not a bit shocked. I’m ecstatic. They love each other, and people who love each other should be together. Period. End of discussion.
The lifestyle they’ve worked out is totally unconventional, which is exactly the way it should be with two people as unusual as Hannah and Hunter.
After they came back from the Everglades, they loaded up Hannah’s plane and flew back to Denali.
“We plan to spend all our summers there,” she told me. “Living wild and free.”
And though she didn’t say as much, I suspect that “living wild and free” means that for a brief interlude each summer she will become wolfwoman to Hunter’s wolfman.
It almost makes me wish I were young again.
But then I wouldn’t have what I do. This remarkable love that came through a six-month fire of separation stronger and more beautiful than ever.
Hannah and Hunter will be back in time for Jacob Michael’s christening in September.
So will Clarice. She and Larry Baird are in Italy.
I halfway expected this to be a honeymoon, but then knowing Clarice, I’m not surprised that she’s still putting off a wedding. Larry asked her to marry him six times before she ever accepted a ring, but she won’t even talk about a wedding date.
“We’re having too much fun to stop so some old fogey with a degree can sanction us,” she said.
Oh, it will be good to have everybody gathered at Belle Rose once more. The entire family, plus a few good friends.
Afterward Michael and I are going to Italy. “Nowhere near the Dolomites,” he assured me, and I said, “Thank you, darling.”
Then I finally told him the truth. “I don’t think I could bear to see you near another mountain. They stole six months from us, and I won’t ever risk that again.”
“You won’t have to, my precious. I don’t plan ever to leave your side.”
Italy is going to be wonderful. “A second honeymoon,” Michael said, and we both laughed.
But our time in Italy is so much more than a second honeymoon. It’s a fulfillment of the promise we made to each other…to keep our relationship sacred.
We will wrap ourselves in a pink cocoon, and there we will stay, loving each other till the end of time…and beyond.