I had the opportunity last weekend to spend some time traveling with my dad, Jennifer and Laynie. Four generations in one car, my dad pointed out. He looked so proud.
I'm sure that when I was a kid I frustrated my folks to no end, but when the girls came along, they could do no wrong in Dad's eyes. When Jen was three, she was... well... she was insane. She had held off on the terrible twos... I thought that I was lucky... but she was just saving up. If I mentioned the details of a trying day to him, he'd say, "Oh no, I don't believe that. Not Jenny!" In fact, nobody but my friend Lonna (Jen called her Bob back then) would listen to me and take me seriously.
Dad saw his grandkids through tinted grandpa eyes. I didn't get it until Laynie was born, and then mine took on the same hue. Perfection in the eye of the beholder. As we ate, he kept looking at Laynie, and his face just glowed, then he'd look at me. "I know.. she's great!", I'd say, but his look said that, once again, I wasn't getting it. He was beaming. I think that he was waiting for her to get up and walk on top of the mud puddle in the parking lot, change the Pepsi into Miller Light, and save the world, right there in the booth. You must get an all new tint with the next generation. Or maybe it's just his bi-focals. Either way, as far as I'm concerned, in ways that may only be real to me, that little girl already HAS saved the world.
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