Wishing my son could grow-up around my family

On the last day, I think we were all ready to head back home.  It was a good trip--the first time in recent memory that I had ever thought of moving back home.  In those seven days I got much more than I expected out of being with family, not that I had low expectations.  I felt their warmth in a different way than I ever had before.  After forty some-odd years of being their son, brother, uncle, friend, I was now a dad.  I don't know how that made me different or how it may have made them different towards me.  In any case there was so much good in what I and my little family felt from them. 

I knew that my parents would take to Ty.  They have always embraced their grandchildren, making time for them, showering them with gifts and love, talking so proudly of them to their friends.  What surprised me a little was how much my brothers took to the little guy and how quickly he took to them.  For some time now, Ty has had this stranger anxiety which did not seem like it was going to dissipate anytime soon.  He took a little time to warm up to my Dad, step-Mother and even my Mother.  But George, my little brother picked him up like they were best buddies.  They were cackling in a mirror, reading stories together, playing with toys.  George is probably the most kid-like of all of my siblings.  At times Ty put his fingers in his mouth and seemed content just to be held by George.  We wondered if it was the family resemblance--George being just a younger version of me that enabled Ty to feel so comfortable, so quickly with his uncle.  Or maybe it was just because he is George. 

Then there is my brother Bill.  He and his wife Pam live in a great old house on a ranch.  They have dogs and cats and horses.  In many ways being on the ranch feels like you are not just visiting family but it is like being on vacation.  It was sitting at their huge farm table two years ago that Darrow and I first discussed with them the fact that we were planning to have a family.  I sat at that same table watching the two of them now interacting with our son.  It was in Pam's kitchen that Ty first discovered the joys of the Tupperware drawer.  Who knew that two people could bond over some plastic. 

After we got home, it didn't take him long to locate the Tupperware in our kitchen.  My brother Bill immediately put the Tigger that they bought for him on his head in order to play with Ty.  Ty kept giggling as he watched his long-haired, bushy-faced uncle be silly.  It is just my brother's nature.  He like Darrow is a Dad's dad.  Any kid would be lucky to have him for a dad or an uncle for that matter.

Then there is Uncle Russell.  We were lucky enough to see a lot of Uncle Russell--a big loveable man and another of those that will make someone a wonderful father.  He too exudes the sense of calm and repose and care that seemed to make Ty feel comfortable.  He pointed out the ferries crossing the water at the end of the pier. 

Saying goodbye was harder this time.  Instead of missing my family generally, it felt like it was amplified by the fact that I was not going to be near them all during this wonderful time for us.  It is hard to be so far away when life continues to go on: kids grow up; parents grow older; people fall in and out of love; everything changes too damn much.  A lot can happen in a year, or two, or three.  Every time I go home there is this illusion that nothing should have changed while I was away.  I not only miss them, I miss what is happening to them.  What's worse, now they will all miss what is happening to me, to us, as our son continues to flourish.  In some ways that is harder to deal with. 

--J