A letter to my grandson

My wife and I are brand new bouncing grandparents as of 12:06 AM Monday. Our oldest son and his lovely wife gave life to an 8 lb 12 oz baby boy called Vincent.

I know exactly what you’re thinking: “But Bern that’s impossible, you’re much too young to be a grandfather!”

According to today’s trends you might very well be correct in that assessment. Let’s just say that I got an early start and leave it at that.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll pardon me for taking advantage of this forum to write a short letter to my beautiful grandson.

Vincent

You can’t imagine how happy I was to meet you. We’ve been thinking about you every day for almost 9 months now. Your grandmother hasn’t stopped talking about you ever since your mom and dad told us you were coming. I never got tired of listening to her, trying to imagine what you would look like and how things would be different when you arrived.

I can’t wait for you to meet everyone. I know you’ll have fun cause you have a very big family. I can’t list them all here, there are just too many and I don’t know all your relatives on your mother’s side but I can tell you they are all very nice and they love you a lot.

I have to tell you that your mom worked really hard to bring you into the world and your dad was right there with her. You’re very lucky to have them as parents. Sometimes, when you’re older, you may not think so but trust me on this one, they love you more than life itself. They will take very good care of you and show you how things work around here. That’s their job and I know they will do it very well.

I need to explain something about grandparents. First, you need to know that you have 4 of them. 2 grandmothers and 2 grandfathers. You will like us  a lot because our job will be to spoil you. That means that we will give you things you don’t really need just because we feel like it. It’s hard to explain but you’ll recognize it when it happens. This will make life difficult for your parents so we’ll try not to do it too often, but we may not be able to help ourselves.

People say that grandparents are supposed to be very wise. Now I don’t know about that, but I would like to share a few pieces of advice that might help you along the way:

• The first is about advice. A lot of people will want to give you some. Some will be good and some… not so much. My advice to you: check with your parents just to make sure. They’ll know.
• Sometimes you will make mistakes. It may not seem like it at the time but mistakes are ok because that’s how you will learn. Don’t be hard on yourself when this happens.
• Never stop dreaming. As you get older, some people will tell you to stop dreaming about being an astronaut or a super hero. They might even tell you that the stuff you’re dreaming about isn’t possible. Don’t believe it. Almost anything is possible if you really want it to be.
• One day you will go to school. When you do, try to learn as much as you can. The world you live in now will be a lot more fun if you learn all about it.
• And finally, be nice to people because everyone is important. Don’t judge anyone by how they look, what language they speak, what their job is or the colour of their skin. Every one started life exactly the same way you did. They all have a mother who worked really hard to bring them into the world. They all have fathers and grandparents too but in some cases they don’t get to see them a lot. I know, that’s very sad but I promise it won’t happen to you.
• Oh and one more thing. Always remember that people don’t stop playing because they got old, they get old because they stopped playing. Sometimes I forget that one myself.

So I’m really glad you’re here because I’m pretty sure you are exactly the little boy who will be able to help me with that.

I love you more than you can imagine.