Gilda and I walked into the daycare room last Thursday afternoon to pick up Cecilia whom we hadn’t seen in person in nearly three months, since her family’s move to Omaha. Cecilia took one look at me and started to cry. Apparently an 11-month-old has some difficulty translating facetime images into flesh and blood figures.
She quickly recovered her poise aided by the comforting presence of her dad, Donny. For the next five days Cecilia bonded anew with her grandparents from New York. When we brought her to daycare Tuesday morning prior to our return to White Plains, our reactions had transposed. Gilda and I fought back tears (unsuccessfully, I might add) while Cecilia eagerly jumped into the arms of her caretaker, Katlyn. She had no idea it would be six weeks before we would see each other again.
By then she would have celebrated her first birthday. Perhaps she would be walking on her own. Perhaps she would have a small vocabulary beyond her babbled mmmaammmammmammama.
How Gilda and I envy grandparents who live a reasonable distance, say, no more than an hour, from their grandchildren, as we did before Ellie, Donny and Cecilia moved from Brooklyn to Omaha.
I guess there’s only one cure for missing grandchildren—embark on another visit. That’s exactly what I’ll do, this time with a quick trip next week to see Finley and Dagny in Massachusetts.