Waiting for the Honeypot

“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best,” and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.”
                                    -A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

 The word Winnie-the-Pooh was searching for surely must have been “anticipation:” that final, delicious moment which comes just before the waiting ends–whether you are sticking your paw into a honey pot or meeting someone very special for the first time. This weekend Brad and I will experience that exquisite moment when anticipation is fulfilled: we are at last going to see my second grandson–now about seven months old–for the very first time. 

The day after he was born in Manhattan last March, the governors of Maryland and New York shut down travel between the states. With hope, we waited for the restrictions to be lifted so that we could go to visit, but to no avail. A month passed. Confined to an apartment in a city whose playgrounds were suddenly closed, my son and daughter-in-law escaped to her sister’s family’s home on Long Island. The weeks spun on and still we did not meet my new grandson. 

At the end of May, perhaps wanting to ascertain that they did not outstay the very hospitable welcome they’d experienced on Long Island, my son and his family temporarily left New York altogether. For safety’s sake, they went to live with his father in Northern California. I watched them go with great sorrow, and as June turned into July, and then July into August, and then August tipped nearer to September, I despaired of ever seeing either of my grandsons any time soon. 

Over FaceTime, I saw the baby begin to smile, learn to turn from tummy to back and back to tummy, and heard his parents’ jubilation as he started to sleep through the night. By the time they returned to New York at the end of the summer, he had been on the West Coast for more of his little life than he had been on the East.  

For all the time we spent apart I kept wondering: who does he really look like? I have seen both photos and videos, but I doubt that they really capture the essence of this little boy. How wide is his smile by now? How is he able to crawl so soon? Can he pick up a Cheerio yet? I have been limited to watching him grow third-hand. 

When he was an infant, I wasn’t able to hold him in my arms, sing him the family lullaby, help spoon in his first bites of rice cereal, or even inhale the scent of his soft baby hair. Now he approaches becoming a toddler. How much I have missed!

And then, too, I haven’t seen my older grandson since last Christmas, when we all gathered here in Maryland. (Trying to Zoom with a three-year-old is a recipe for frustration, as we soon discovered.) How tall will he now be? What new songs does he know? Surely his favorite Old MacDonald has been replaced with something more sophisticated?This fall he began pre-school, and as he is no longer the sole star in the family firmament, I try to imagine how he gets along with his younger brother. But the most important question of all is whether he will give me a hug when we arrive, or whether he will be shy. 

All my questions will be answered in three short days, when we travel up to New York. We have made ourselves as safe as possible, having gotten COVID tests and self-quarantined for the past week. We have rented an Airbnb together outside the city–thus limiting our impromptu household to include just the six of us in a place where there is plenty of fresh air and the room to kick around a soccer ball. We want to keep our pod, or bubble, small and secure. 

These are the tactics we take in order to remain safe; these are the tactics we take in order to hug each other once again. Brad and I are anticipating dipping our fingers into this very special honeypot, certain that it will indeed be sweet. 

Yours,