The Senescent Soul: A Year As a Ya-Ya

My precious little grandson, Adam, turned the age of one on Sunday, January 25, 2015. We had a small family celebration at our home, having a grand time, while watching Adam enjoy his gifts, "dig-in" to his small and colorful Monsters University cake, and explore the house on two feet since he has mastered the gift of walking.

While Adam visited with us, I recognized a calming and pleasant feeling that I have missed since the children, themselves, were small like him; that exploration of innocence that all younger children experience as they pitter and patter throughout the bare floors of the halls and rooms, touching this and touching that. It is enough to make one tear up; for those of us older, maturer, and graying (in some of the most exposed places), we have an understanding that life does not stand still; children grow too quickly and manage to be here one day, and gone the next.

Adam is very precious to us all and will lead the way for other grandchildren to come and take his place pittering and pattering barefooted on the floors of our home, exploring the grounds of our property, and completing that emptiness that older couples often encounter. Until then, David and I will continue to find more ways to love Adam, teach him the wonderful things about our world that surrounds us, and show him how to have fun naturally, as our parents and grandparents taught us.