This Little Piggy Went to Market...

My daughter gave birth to our grandson, recently. It was a joyous day for our family: a beautiful, baby boy, whose birth marks the beginning of a new generation: great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, baby. The beauty of it is that Junior was born just hours before the annual celebration of our daughter's birth - a birth day birthday to the second power, if you will. 

The celebration of Little Junior began on my birthday when I got a birthday card saying:

What do you get the greatest dad in the world for his birthday? How about a grandchild? 

Cant argue with thet logic. Besides, there is a "no return" policy on this gift!

Since that wonderful night, I have kept that little baby in my prayers, for health for himself, an uneventful pregnancy for mom, patience for dad, and most of all, ten fingers and ten toes. 

Those last two requests may seem rather simple and mundane to you, but to me, Dear Reader, those two requests make up twenty very important reasons to pray for and, dare I say worry about, my grandchild. 

Have you seen the movie Forrest Gump? Great flick. It's thirty years old, but still worth watching, whether as a new experience or a repeat performance. Briefly, the titular character is "slow," to use the uphamism of the 1950's. The movie explores how he overcomes his simple slowness. He rises above - often by happenstance - and benefits from his struggles, attending the University of Alabama as a star in Bear Bryant's team, joins the Army, receives a Medal of Honor, becomes a world-class ping-pong player, and... Well, I'll save some for you to watch. 

From the time he was a boy, Forrest had a crush on a girl named Jenny. He pronounces it with two full syllables, emphasis on the first: JENN-nay. From childhood, running away from the neighborhood bullies ("Run, Forrest! Run!") to running into her at a Vietnam War protest, theirs is a story of his constant love for her, his dogged faithfulness to her, and her breaking his heart over and over as she runs away.

Finally, he finds her in a cute, quiet apartment where Forrest is introduced to a little boy named Forrest, "After his daddy." Slowly, Forrest realizes he is the father. Angst at what might be floods his face, washing away the joy at seeing his dear Jenny. His voice shaking with fear, he asks "Is he smart, or..." His voice breaks as he touches his chest, the unable-to-be-asked question, "or is he like me," hanging in the air. Jenny assures Forrest that her son, his son, is smart - one of the smartest in his class - and relief washes over Forrest's face. 

I resonate with that scene. I am blessed that my children and, I presume, my children's children, are smarter than me. Intelligence is not the issue. My resonance lies in those ten fingers and ten toes I mentioned a moment ago. Those twenty little reasons are my Forrest-like worry because my feet are toe-less, a birth defect as if amputated from just fore of the arch, and my hands are dwarfed, as well. While my left hand has full fingers, my palm is about the size of an 8th grader and my fingers are only about 2 inches long. My right hand is also dwarfed, but my fingers there are about an inch and a half long and lack a middle joint. They are straight and unbending. 

I was born this way. I've never known different. I learned to walk and run, balancing on those small feet. Through college, I wore smaller-than-normal shoes. The fronts of the shoe, toe-less and empty, would curl upward like Oz's Munchkins. I learned to write, throw a baseball with my right hand and a medium-sized football with my left, but I cannot throw a full-sized ball because I simply can't grasp it. I played ball, ran track, hauled hay, mowed lawn, marched in the band. I climbed hills and even snow skied - once. I have a hard time in sand and mud because I sink, lacking surface area to keep afloat. Slippery floors terrifying me for a similar reason. All in all, I can do almost anything and everything I have ever wanted to do. 

But when we found out we were expecting our first child, I practically wore out the knees of my pants, praying she would have ten fingers and toes. At each sonogram, the tech assured me that they were all there. When she was born, before I could ask the oft-asked question, afraid that those grainy black and white pictures lied, the doctor looked at me, smiled, and simply said, "Yes." I counted and recounted myself, just to confirm. I did the same thing for child number two and child number three. Three kids: thirty toes, thirty fingers, all in nice, neat baby rows. 

I have a sneaking suspicion that my birth defects - that's what they are, damn the PC torpedoes and full speed ahead - were caused by chemicals my Dad was exposed to while working in a plant nursery. My issues are not unlike second generation issues caused by the infamous Agent Orange, a powerful defoliant much like Roundup on steroids. I don't know that Dad used such stuff. It's just a hunch. The fact that my younger sister had issues similar to me says it wasn't just a one-off problem. Dad also died with liver cancer, again, not unlike what is often caused by chemicals exposure. Regardless the cause, to borrow from Popeye, "I am what I am, and that's all that I am."

But I didn't want my kids or grandkids to have to be like me and struggle with issues like I have. For five decades, I've gotten countless looks at shoe stores, the swimming pool, even walking across town. I see it in people's faces when we shake hands, that "What the...?" look that flashes across the face as their eyes flit downward for just a second, only to catch themselves and try to pretend nothing happened. My nephew, three or four at the time, quipped "Uncle Jon, push your toes out," when he saw my feet. Sorry, kid...doesn't work that way. The older I get, the cumulative, multiplied effect of minimal shock absorption of a normal foot is catching up to me: bad knees, hips and back. I have and will continue to deal with it for myself. But I don't want such a thing for my family. 

So, the night our daughter called with the news, I caught my breath, waiting to ask the unasked question, "Is he like me...?" She had asked herself, wanting to know for herself and her husband, and for me, every time the doctor and sonogram tech all saying that toes and fingers were in appropriate abundance and in good order, but seeing is believing. Before I could even muster up the courage to ask, praying the docs and techs and pictures were all correct and that nothing was missing, my daughter simply said, "And, Dad: yes...ten, times two."

And I wept with joy - not just at the birth of her son, my grandson, but st that wonderful newborn math: five plus five plus five plus five. Per my first grade math, way back in 1981, taught by Mrs. Scherping at Holy Cross Lutheran School in Emma, Missouri, that's twenty - twenty beautiful fingers and toes to be nibbled, tickled, and held. 

In a few weeks, we get to see the little fella. I'll check for myself to make sure that he's not like me and that they're all there. I feel pretty confident her Mom has it right, though. After all, she was one of the smartest kids in her class.