UNTIL ONE DAY

Here at the end of my not quite two-year-old grandaughter Kaya's brief summer visit, the last she will make as an infant, I'm feeling for the first time that grand sadness I realize now is inherent in all the departures of modern grandparenting, that must have been felt by my own grandparents. What delight it has been to behold my own ancestors in that bright little face, to bring her to flowers bigger than she is, show her a few of all the amazing things there are, from garden to star, have her first experience the fragrance of a favorite herb, hear her say her version of a new word and call me by her name for me.

Then in the new nature of things she goes away and is not seen for such-and-such a length of time and by then will have grown in her life, in which I will have only a small and occasional part (she is after all her parents' child). But seeing her little life - that has become so much a part of mine in a way new to the newly elder me - go away to grow is a keen sadness, moreso even than seeing my own children go away into the lives they live now, for that was the purpose all along, to raise them healthy and honest and strong and forthright and send them off into the world, and so there was and is great pride in their growing and going and living their lives.

But it is different with a grandchild, who when next I see her will no longer be the one I now love so; that one will be gone forever into my memories, and the new Kaya will be grown and know nothing of that in me, which is as it must be, until she one day becomes a grandparent herself, and perhaps in recalling comes to realize then how much I love her now.