I fought back an urge to sing out loud. “Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day!” Never mind that not everything was going my way - it had been a tough week, in fact - but the promise of a sun-filled day with my three grandchildren, to borrow another song lyric, made my troubles melt like lemon drops.
The 4-year-old grandprincess, less inhibited, skipped over dormant, dew-kissed grass, singing a silly little song that only she knew. I smiled with building joy as she politely said, “Good morning,” to each waving daffodil.
We gathered up the little pink and purple gardening tools she got for Easter last year, and she listened intently as I explained how to lift the dreaded clumps of nutgrass spreading amid the iris. We worked, amiably, side by side, filling a grocery bag with the offending weeds.
It was a game to her, but pure pleasure to me. After our endless winter, the simple chore of pulling weeds felt like a gift from God. I even smiled and shrugged when I got mud on my best jeans.
Shovel in hand, the man of the house called out, “Come see what we found!” and we hustled to the edge of the yard, where he and the grandtwins had been digging in a loose patch of earth.
“Ew, gross!” the princess exclaimed, wrinkling her nose at the wriggling worms in his hand.
Her 6-year-old brothers were enchanted. “Can I hold one, Papa?” they chorused, extending grubby, cupped hands. Carefully juggling the wiggling treasures, they followed their Papa to his newly built raised beds to release the worms into their new home. We watched in awe, the grownups as fascinated as the children, as the earthworms efficiently burrowed their way into the brown dirt.
“Ew, gross!” the princess said again as we insisted on explaining the fertilizing value of worm poop.
Then, wriggling as quickly and effectively as the worms, the children disappeared into a stand of tall acuba bushes, otherwise known as “Club Jungle” - no grownups allowed. They emerged periodically to show off some discovery - a red berry, an odd-shaped pine cone, a feather - and to announce newly made rules.
“This is the playing jungle,” the blond grandtwin said.
“And that is the eating jungle,” his brunette brother said, pointing to another stand of shrubs.
I couldn’t help thinking, as they pretended this and pretended that, how my brothers and I had played the same timeless games in our grandmother’s yard. All children really need for play is a bit of nature and their boundless imaginations.
We missed the brunette twin and, after a brief search, found him curled up between two big old boxwoods, contentedly reading a Ricky Ricotta chapter book. My heart swelled with pride. And recognition. That boy has some of my DNA, for sure.
After we’d munched corndogs under the poolside arbor, the man of the house got that look in his eye. I knew he had something up his sleeve.
I left, reluctantly, for a mandatory errand and by the time I got home, the boys were mounting the bikes that had hung on our garage wall all winter. I gasped, then clapped my hands in delight as I realized the training wheels were gone.
The riders were a little shaky at first, but ready. Falls were astonishingly few. Within minutes they were rolling across the grass, then up and down the driveway, their smiles as wide as the handlebars.
But there was more than jubilation on their faces. They were flushed with the sudden awareness of … freedom. They were giving independence a big, exuberant boy hug.
I sighed, proud and sad at the same moment. I knew we had witnessed a rite of passage, a precursor of many that are to come.
In the span of the sun’s daily trek across the sky, before our wondering eyes, we had seen little boys grow up.
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