A special friendship

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you are the world.” - Heather Cortez

There is nothing more fitting than this quotation to describe the relationship between Toby and my father.

In all his 82 years of life, I have never seen my dad so taken by any other person as he is by Toby. Initially, he was disappointed not to have had a 7th granddaughter, but it was only a matter of hours before his first grandson won him over.

No matter how cranky either one of them is acting, if the other one enters the room it’s all smiles. We call this Toby’s Grandpa-smile because it is only ever this big when he’s smiling to Grandpa. It’s a huge you-can-see-all-6-teeth-a-twinkle-in-the-eyes-and-perhaps-some-dimples-to-boot smile. And its reciprocal- - plus or minus a few teeth, of course.

Today, when I was trying to leave my parents house (after much bemoaning on the part of both my father AND Toby) Toby was upstairs throwing a royal-I’m-overtired-and-I-Don’t-want-to-do-anything-you-say –hissy fit. My mom and I were consoling/luring him downstairs with the help of his beloved Bear, when I said, “Toby- -can you take Bear downstairs to Grandpa?” Right away he stopped crying and set to work at going downstairs while holding his bear so he could give it to Grandpa. When we got halfway down I saw that my dad, having listening from the kitchen, had also set to work to get his wobbly self as quickly as possible to the front hall so he could be waiting for Toby (and Bear) at the bottom of the stairs. (Anyone who has seen my dad walk knows this is no small feat…)

But the GREAT thing about Grandpa’s wobbly-hobbly walk is that it comes with a CANE. Toby LOVES the cane. He likes to bang it on the floor, hit people in the head with it, play tug of war and knock things over with it. So he was very excited to find it lying on the floor in Grandpa’s room yesterday morning. Part of Toby’s morning ritual at my parents house is to “check on Grandpa sleeping” which he does, very quietly, about 10 times a morning as he impatiently waits for him to get up. But yesterday morning he very quietly (I can’t believe my child does ANYTHING quietly but this story comes from my mother) walked over to Grandpa’s cane and, resisting the urge to bang, crash or whack something with it, took it over to the bed and tried to hand it to my sleeping father. The cane is pretty boring without his favourite person attached to it.

I think the most touching moment of the visit was last night…After a busy day in the Big City, Toby went down easily at bedtime but lay in his crib happily talking to himself before he fell asleep. Dad was downstairs watching the VERY IMPORTANT hockey game (with only a few reminders from my mother coaching him along…). After about 15 minutes my dad called my mom over,

“Lynda! Turn off the volume to the game- - I want to hear the baby!”

And my dad sat there for 2 hours, watching the game on mute and smiling as he listened to his grandson chatting away in his crib over the baby monitor.

I don’t know what my exact opinion is on reincarnation - -but when you see these two together there’s no doubt in my mind that their souls are long lost friends.