The priceless essence of my grandson’s innocence

I look at you and I melt.

I cannot be but grateful for your miracle; that you are perfection in our imperfect world.

To me, you are, with all newborns of the world, the re-enactments of Nativity – through you, pure love is being born into our world anew.

It is no wonder that when that other baby boy from Nazareth was around, three old men came from far to visit him, bearing gifts. 

In their wisdom, they had no doubt, how much love this baby boy, “tender and mild,” could bring into the world.  

I bow before your fabulous incarnation of loveliness.

It cannot but pull me into your irresistible orbit; to make me rotate around you. 

I thank my lucky stars that I have the privilege to share your amazing presence in my life.

I can see in you, my pure, innocent beginnings; my original awe of sensing my oneness with all.

This sense of oneness is still in my adult me but is buried under many concealing layers deposited on it, through life’s trials and tribulations.

But no matter how hard it is to live it, I believe it is still my true self.

When I look at you, my tiny grandson, that faint spark of my childhood innocence bursts into a flame and takes me over. 

It is like a purgatory that burns away all that is not essential in life. 

What remains is pure love; the loveliness that you incarnate; your true essence, on display for everyone to see. 

It is also my true essence, no matter how deeply buried it tends to be. 

It erupts from the depths when I am in your wonderful company.

I sing to you with Phil Collins: 

“When I’m feelin’ blue, all I have to do, is take a look at you, then I’m not so blue.
When you’re close to me, I can feel your heartbeat, I can hear you breathing in my ear. Wouldn’t you agree? Baby, you and me got a groovy kind of love.”

Einstein said to the effect that in life, either everything is seen as a miracle or none is.

Since you and every newborn are unmistakable miracles, then everything must be a miracle.

You know this because as you look around, you find everything wondrous. 

You come to this world with a fresh sense of oneness. 

First, only this inner world of oneness is visible to you as your outer eyes’ sight of the external world is blurred.

But as you begin to discern your outer guardians, you see them all located within your universe; there are no separate outer and inner worlds for you, they are all aspects of your one, undivided world. 

You teach me to re-imagine again all, as one whole.

Only by regaining this oneness, which you represent, that I can perhaps attain maturity as an adult.

You are gorgeously innocent and totally vulnerable.

The cow’s calf stands up straight after birth, finds its mother’s udders and begins to feed immediately. 

Incredibly, the newborn Joey kangaroo, one inch in size, climbs unaided into the mother’s pouch and finds a teat.  

Not so with you, my beloved. 

You need to be put on your mother’s breast to feed. 

And you will not be able to crawl for a while, let alone walk for a long time.

So, you are utterly dependent on others to take care of you.

That makes you fragile and vulnerable.

In being so, you model to me an essence of the human condition – utter vulnerability.

Some of us adults, kid ourselves that we are so self-sufficient.

Nonsense.

Any one of us could perish any moment – we are born one moment; we die in another.  

None of us is really in control over how long we have got between those moments.

So my dear grandson, try to never completely lose your sense of vulnerability because it is a precious human quality. 

No matter how self-sufficient you become, never forget this about yourself and others.

Then it may become easier for you to be kind to yourself and to others.

And your innocence?

Goodness gracious; it is priceless. 

You radiate it and I cannot have enough to soak it all in as if I was sunbaking. 

I wish I could still be innocent. 

It means ‘harmlessness’, not ignorance.

You automatically know a lot about your innocence. 

It allows you to embrace the whole world.

Like your two-year-old cousin, who waves to, says hello to and talks to ants. 

He pinches a few grains of sand and brings them to me as if they were a great gift.

Then he repeats the act over and over again.

I do not know what this ceremony means to him. 

But I know he is engaged in giving and this is something precious.

So, stay harmless through your life my dear boy; that is what our world needs and please, keep teaching me how to emulate you.