The Choice of Joy: Day 35, Firstborn of a New Generation

My eldest grandson Cole is . . . .

With Cole it is not easy to pin a description down.  He lives in a body that seldom knows of being still.  In a few short months, he will be nine years old.  He plays drums with his uncle, a professional artist at percussions. When I come to visit, he shows me his progress at his piano lessons.  Then we go to the soccer field, and I watch those young legs at the sport, eyes in concentration on the ball.  With his sister we sit at the dining table with paper, glue and coloring implements and create some new art.  Our creations have included a collage of a winter scene of cotton balls and leafless twigs and black felt for the snowman’s hat; a miniature village of paper houses, castles and towers; and a little booklet where Cole made up the story, I wrote down and he illustrated in crayons within the stapled pages.  I collect cardboard boxes and with a cutter and duct tape we build mysterious labyrinths that he and his sister crawl through.

He loves magic.  He reads Harry Potter novels and practices magic tricks from kits.  One of his favorite garments is a Merlin robe I gave him for his last birthday.  And as he moves from the alchemy of imagination and performing tricks to the real of his chemistry set and microscope, I marvel at his connection with the two.

Once returning home one day from first grade at his school, he announced to his mother, “This has been the best day of my life!”  His enthusiasm had something to do with some new lesson about the physiology of the brain.

He already has his eccentricities.  He does not like change within his home.  He was quite upset when his parents replaced the old, broken stove in the kitchen with a new one.  Surely the old could be rehabilitated. 

But none of these scenes of Cole get at the heart of him.  These are just the byproducts of a deeper Cole.  I hope someday to have the words for description of that essence,  the source of who he is.  Sometimes I think that if I do, I will finally find God, that elusive being who I continually search for. 

My joy today is Cole and of the possibility for which he points the way.