Fragile Moments

"I love you, Pop."

"I love you too, John."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"Because you've told me so more than a hundred times."

John is 4, and I'm his grandpa. I'm not sure where the name "Pop" came from. He has called me this since he was able to talk. It was original with him. "We're buddies, aren't we, Pop?" he often says. And buddies we are.

I have always been aware of the influence an adult has on a child, and I'm especially sensitive to this with John. He always wants to put his red shirt on when I wear mine. He wants to wear his boots or his work hat when I do. "We're twins," he tells me, though sometimes it takes a lot of imagination on my part to see the resemblance.

John stayed overnight with me recently. He often does, and it's a special time for both of us. This particular time was extra special because it was the first time he had slept over since I had been living alone. John's grandmother—"Neeny" he called her, another of his original names—had died only a few weeks before, two days before Christmas, after a brief fight with cancer.

On this night, he and I did our usual things. Between baths and bedtime, we popped corn, read stories and played games. But this night we also talked about Neeny and all the things the three of us had done together. I could see that what we were doing for each other needed to be done. He was trying to comfort me. "I'll sleep next to you so you won't be lonesome," he said.

But I could see that John needed comforting, too. The hustle and bustle of Christmas had denied us some of the necessary discussions that needed to take place at a time like this. John was feeling the hurt of his loss, and he also needed reassurance that he was still a very important part of my life.

John did keep me from being lonesome that night and what I saw when I awoke the next morning touched me in a way I shall never forget. It was one of those examples of a picture being worth a thousand words. Like bookends around my shoes on the floor beside the bed were John's little shoes, as close to mine as they could be placed.

"We're buddies, you know," John had said as we lay together before falling asleep.

People need people, especially when the moments are fragile, and the people are grandfather and grandson.