My experience as a grandfather has evolved in almost precisely the way I expected it to, with the exception that my granddaughter has an exceptionally adorable smile and seems quite pleased with herself, and has also become a valuable mainstay on my blog.
We don’t see one another that often, so the relationship is circumscribed by distance, as I thought.
She has not altered my life or transformed it, and I am not involved deeply in her life, nor should I be. Emma and Jay are doing fine. I certainly love Robin and revel in the photographs that Emma sends me.
In a sense, it’s a very healthy and bounded thing, it has enriched me.
The videos and visits and photos Emma shares with me have had an enormous impact on me.
I called her this morning with one purpose in mind, and that was to tell her what a wonderful mother she is, how, for me, the most powerful thing that has emerged from Robin’s appearance on the earth has been to see how warm, loving and affirming Emma is with her child.
And how Robin is, in just six months, already emerging as a confident, secure and very happy person. It is very early in Robin’s life, and things will get more complex and difficult, we all know that. So far, so great.
Emma understands, as I do that Robin’s independence and will may translate into some challenging years down the road – I can testify to that – but it is a beautiful thing to see what a natural, patient and instinctive mother Emma is.
Robin is at ease in her world, happy to go to day care, happy to be home, happy to be in the midst of a street demonstration in New York with thousands of people screaming all around her.
“Well,” said Emma,” she is certainly able to say what she wants.” This, I pointed out, is a great gift, just think of the people she knows who are able to speak up for themselves and say what they want.
Robin has somewhat magically transformed my own relationship with Emma. She and I have always been close and connected, but my own crack-up and then divorce drove us apart for some years. We are learning to love one another again.
I was not well or healthy for a long time, and was lost. I ran away from my family, including Emma, and that was entirely my fault. We got angry and disconnected with one another. We hurt each other.
Robin seems to have brushed all that aside, and Emma and I talk often and easily now, and not just about Robin. We trust each other again, the walls between us collapsing. Maria has seen this happen, perhaps before I did.
Emma, like me, does not really know how to absorb praise, but it was important for me to tell her how much I admired her parenting of Robin, how conscientious and loving it was. It is miraculous to see the evolution of a grounded and healthy child, I relate to that very much. Selfishly, it is also gratifying for me to see, since I must have done something right, or Emma wouldn’t be so good at it. It seems so natural to her.
I was so frightened that the mental illness in my own family would harm Emma that I went to see an analyst in New York before she was born, I told her I wanted to know how to be a better parent that I had. That began my almost life-long immersion in talking therapy, the analyst saw my brokenness and took me in, it saved my life.
I am a Freudian, I underwent Freudian analysis for some years. I am sorry this practice has faded in the age of insurance and hurried lives. It was a wonderful experience for me.
When I visited Emma and Jay and Robin in New York a few weeks ago, and saw how natural and gifted a mother Emma was, i re-read my dusty of volume “Twins,” the work of the great late British analyst Dorothy Burlingham, a pioneer student of early childhood development. And a profound influence on my own parenting, when I was sane enough to think about it. It is always near me on my bookshelf.
I thought of Emma and of Robin as Burlingham wrote of the early period of the daydreamer’s life, when the child was mostly happy, before the inevitable emotional conflicts disturbed him or her, when they felt completely secure in the possession of their parents, dependent on the mother, and there was no need in life for other consolation.
In a healthy home, the child and the mother become beloved companions for a critical time, along with real and imaginary animal friends. “…and in this way,” writes Burlingham, “she overcomes loneliness.” Speech is quite unnecessary, for understanding comes without words. Later, the child needs to grow and move outward, but for now, the mother is everything.
Emma gives Robin the greatest gifts an infant can receive – pure and unconditional love, an emotional connection that nurtures safety and confidence, and patience and understanding. I can see in the photos and videos that Robin is looking to Emma for approval and understanding and love, and receiving all three, responds with confidence and creativity. She loves to dance already and is rewarded for trying.
When Robin is anxious or troubled, Emma senses it instantly, and this, says Burlingham, is how a child learns to overcome anxiety and transcend it. It is something I live with almost every day, Maria as well.
My own role as a grandfather still seems limited to me, I know people love to tell me how over the top I will go, but I have no real interest in going there. I want Robin to know I love her and appreciate the loud and non-organic presents I bring her. I hope she will come to love the farm and think one day of the strange man who was her grandfather and try to love her life.
The real gift, though, is the one Emma is giving her, the gift of love and encouragement and approval. I sometimes want to cry when I think of how wonderful a parent Emma is. It is Robin who has given me the greatest gift of all, bringing me back to my daughter, and my daughter back to me.
Sometimes, you can fill those holes in the heart.