I have never looked at a photo on my phone for so long. I could not take my eyes off him.
It was a picture of our first grandchild. I hadn’t seen him in person yet. This was our introduction. And it was love at first sight.
Yeah, yeah, I know. We grandparents can be a bit much. There’s nothing quite like one of us armed with a smartphone full of photos and videos.
But we can’t help ourselves. When you hold that child in your arms a switch goes off inside you. I think we are hardwired to go nuts when our kids have kids of their own. Indifferent grandparents wouldn’t have helped the survival of the species.
The old saw about being a grandparent is that it’s great because when you’re done doting on them, you can give them back to their parents. But what that really means is that you feel love unencumbered by responsibility, and that love is a surge of pure, unalloyed tenderness.