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From One Generation to Another

Blog, On Writing, What I'm Thinking

I’ve recently been privileged to spend some intense time with my beautiful two-year-old granddaughter, and over and over again I was forcefully reminded how magical the world looks at that age.

It’s all about firsts, and about stories. A rented house, with all kinds of new things. Each one a story.

At the front door, the fierce statue of a red-faced Chinese Guardian Lion, a Foo Dog. But Eva sees a friendly puppy, whom she calls Tony, and delights in sitting on his head, feeding him leaves from a nearby potted succulent, and sharing with him her best friend, a soft and fuzzy bunny named Hop-Hop.

The plastic lizard placed under the geraniums, initially so rough and bumpy and toothsome, becomes a friend, too, as he climbs the wall to the hanging aluminum sculpture of an apple tree—and eats first a red, then a green, then a yellow apple. So full of apple, he has to go back to the geraniums and take a nap. We give him a wash, and pretty soon he has to take a bath with her.

The little fountain in the garden, surrounded by rocks, each one of which changes color when wet. And the buttercups, which, when picked, float on the water’s surface.

The wooded dragon, a sad little creature mounted on a piece of thick wire, sits silently in the corner of the porch, but Eva calls him Hobart, the magic dragon in one of her many beloved books.

“Hi!” she says, bending down to him, waving her Queen Elizabeth wave. I think she really sees him wink a wooden eye in response.

And then one day, after a bit of a cry, we hugged, and I remembered my own children, and the stories we learned to tell.

“Let’s tell a story,” I said, and as usual she went to select a book. “We don’t need a book for this story,” I said. “Come sit on my lap and I’ll tell you a story about a little girl named Eva.”

She looked a little skeptical, but she came, and I sat her on my lap, facing me.

“Once upon a time,” I said, “there was a little girl, and her name–“   I pointed to her bright yellow blouse—“her name was Eva.”

She was hooked.

“Eva had a little bunny rabbit,” I said, “whose name was—“

“Hop-Hop,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, surprised. “How did you know?”

And so it went. Hop-Hop got lost, and Eva looked everywhere for him. But he was nowhere to be found. And then when she went to take her nap, guess where she found him?  Waiting for her in her crib, hiding under a blanket.

“Again,” she said.

So over and over we told the story, and each time it became more and more her own. It wasn’t me telling the story; it was two of us, creating a history.

On the plane home, I thought about the relationship between our little story and the books I write — what I’m trying to achieve in the telling of any tale.

I’m deeply interested in how we receive our own family histories. One of the legacies we receive from our parents and grandparents is some sense of where we came from and who our forebears were. Their stories help define who we are.

Now that I have joined the ranks of grandparents, that long and illustrious line that precedes us back into time, I can see what a great influence we can have over what the next generation thinks about itself and about where it comes from. If we handle those stories wisely and with compassion, with humor, honesty and grace, we can shape the future.