My little guy has a little guy. He arrived on a Sunday morning in August, a shade over seven pounds and 21 inches long, which makes him about 1 foot 9.
By any measure, that's pretty small, but since his father has a couple inches on me and his mother is an ex-model with long limbs, chances are good that one day he'll be taller than all of us.
I remember when my son was born. Expectant fathers weren't supposed to be in the delivery room in those days, but I made the request and it was granted. However, the doctor's words were blunt: “If you faint we're just going to walk over you. We're only concerned with the mother and the baby.”
I got the message and didn't faint, and today the experience is a highlight of my life. It happened in the middle of the night, and I had to dress in doctors' garb – blue mask, slippers, pants, top, cap. I marched into the delivery room, and before long my wife was giving birth. Pretty soon the doctor was applying his forceps to the little head poking out. To me, it was as if he were wielding a tire iron.
“Hey,” I said, “should you be using that much force?”
A moment later the new arrival arrived. “It's a boy,” the doctor said. Back then we didn't know these things in advance.
I remember seeing his little arms and legs, which looked like elasticized limbs going boing boing. When it was all over, and both mother and baby were doing fine, I returned to the change room where another doctor was coming in for his night shift. In my ecstasy, I couldn't contain myself and exclaimed, “I'm a father! I'm a father!”
This doctor was getting dressed, and without a glance in my direction said, “That's nice,” as if this sort of thing happens every day, which, of course, it does.
Incredibly, that was more than 30 years ago. Today that little fellow who came in at 7 pounds 9 ounces and just under 20 inches outweighs me by 50 pounds and is built like an Adonis. No wonder he's a personal trainer. But despite all that, he will always be my little guy.
Wasn't it only yesterday when he was less than a year old, sitting in his high chair and throwing things off the tray? I'd pick everything up and put them all back, then he would do it again, only this time he'd look me in the eye as if to say, “Whatcha gonna do about it?”
Wasn't it only yesterday when he'd perform a nasty wrestling move called the tombstone on his little sister, who was three years younger, no matter how many times we told him to stop? In our household, the fights between these two are legend, but today you won't find a brother and sister who are closer.
Or how about the time when he was 5 and we were in the car on a hot summer day with the windows wide open? A 300-pound biker with a Hells Angels logo on the back of his leather jacket was pulling up beside us on his Harley-Davidson. My little son stuck his head out the window and screamed at the top of his lungs, “Hey you big fat slob!”
Wasn't it only yesterday when he was 12 and we were playing a family baseball game? I was the pitcher, and just as I was bending over to pick up a softball to throw to him at the plate, he uncorked a vicious line drive off his bat. Little did I know that he had a hardball on him. It hit me right in the head and I fell in a heap, got up and fell again. Later I had to get X-rayed to make sure nothing was broken. Thankfully, it wasn't.
Or how about the time a year or so after that when the two of us were stopped at a traffic light directly across the road from a strip club?
“Dad, do they have girls in there?” he asked me.
“Yes they do.”
“Are they naked?”
“I think so.”
“Hmm. Can you touch them?”
Now he has a little guy of his own, and seeing him with his son for the first time is an image I will never forget. Here was this hulking son of mine cradling that tiny head in one of his hands. He brought him to his face and kissed him tenderly, and it was just like me with him and, I'm sure, my father with me many years ago. I envy this little fellow because I never had a grandfather myself and here he is with two of them.
And so I find myself at the stage when I am suddenly a grandpa. It might take some getting used to, but then so do all stages of life.
Do I have any advice for my little guy now that he has a little guy of his own? Yes, and it's this: Keep hugging and kissing that little guy all you can because those days will zoom by so quickly, and before you know it, they'll be gone. But I guess you're just going to have to find this out for yourself.
Jerry Amernic lives in Toronto.
Illustration by Peter Mitchell.
