The TriDad Life

Dear Beanpod,

Today, the blocks indicate that we are less than a month away from your birth. The countdown is soon coming to its conclusion. In 28 days, or thereabouts, you will be here. We can’t wait.

I’ve really enjoyed writing you these notes. It’s been a chance for me to reflect on my life and to start putting into words some of the things I want to teach you.

Today’s letter is a bit hard for me to write, but I believe it will be one of the most important.

In one of my recent letters, I was cluing you in on the “Other Countdown.” In fact, somewhere in the world, at any given time, the countdown of someone’s life has reached zero, and the loved ones of that person are left behind to live on with that person purely as a memory. They were here, but they aren’t anymore.

Yesterday morning, just as I was freshly turning over the blocks to mark one more day closer to your arrival, I received news that the end of the “other countdown” for your Great Grandma, your Dad’s Grandma, our dear Grandma Ann, had come. Her countdown began 87 years ago, which you’ll find is a great long time, relatively speaking. But still, it always feels like it comes too soon.

I wish you could have known her, but you will certainly learn about her. She was an important person in my life, as you will come to understand with your own Grandmas. Grandma Ann loved to be with us, and we loved to be with her.

I remember when I was young, I used to cry when we had to leave her and Grandpa Jack’s house in Lansing after our visits. We were very close, and this relationship carried into my adult years. I went to college at Michigan State University in East Lansing, which conveniently was a few short miles from where Grandma and Grandpa lived. I used to go to their house almost every week. Grandma Ann would make something wonderful for my friends and me. Usually, it included mashed potatoes – Grandma’s mashed potatoes remain my #1 favorite food! It makes me sad to know that she’ll never make them for me again.

We knew your Great Grandma’s death had been coming for several days, and it’s been on my mind. The other day while I was driving through town, the car in front of me stopped in the middle of the road. A young girl, probably no more than 20, quickly opened the door and popped out of the car. She was smiling, in an excited hurry, probably on her way to go out to see her friends.

I smiled, too, because in that moment, I felt a strange connection to my Grandma. It was like I was experiencing a memory that I couldn’t really have ever had – a memory, or more like a vision, of my Grandma at one moment in time, long gone by, of being an excited 20 year old heading out to see her friends. She was a beautiful woman and had a youthful spirit. On the same token, I also felt I connected with you in a way; that as I saw this girl darting across the street to whatever was causing such excitement, I was getting a glimpse of a future moment of you – the life and the memories that soon you will build in your youth, and that I’ll get to watch unfold before my eyes.

I’m finding solace, gratitude and hope in the contemplation such things. Just as the beginning of your life has given me the opportunity to reflect and put things in perspective, the end of your Great Grandma’s life has had the same effect. In fact, it is quite a marvel and even a blessing to be able to consider them both at the same moment in time. I can’t quite explain it, but as these two events coincide in my life, it makes me feel the current that I’ve always believed runs through us here in this life and connects us all. I believe it is more than just the obvious biological connection that runs through our genealogy, but something ethereal, spiritual, and divinely beautiful.

Life is funny. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem to make any sense at all. Yet at other times, things seems so clear, and you can sense that there is a plan after all.

Yesterday morning, I read a devotion, a habit I’ve resumed recently. The Bible passage was from Romans 6, verse 23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I sent this to our family members, and your Great Uncle John sat at your Great Grandma’s bedside and read it to her. He told me that moments later, she took her final breath. It was the peace she needed to move on, sent from God through us, and it was also her final message to us, sent from God through her, to know that it is all going to be ok.

It’s evidence of the plan. The “Other Countdown” is not the end. It is the beginning of something else – the end of all countdowns.

So, to Grandma Ann, I use this letter to say, see you again. I’ll always love you. You live on here in our hearts – those that are here, and those that are yet to come. We’ll tell many, many stories about you to our beanpod.

And to you, my child, as I always say, with even firmer resolve this time, I’ll see you soon.

Love,

Your Dad