Really Wowing!

Wow! For me, that is, what this past week was, when my children, and their children, visited the Dock.

You know, many people enjoy and remember their family visits by the fun times, playing games, visiting attractions, over eating, revisiting memories, and catching with the rest of the family happs. And we did all of that.

But for me, it is most wowing to watch how the roots that I helped plant have matured. And by no means is that meant to say that I am the reason for their success, but it is comforting to think that I was a part of it. And as I mature with my family, the more I learn and love it.

With each visit I learn and love so much more than the previous. I learned that I can actually communicate very well with a 2 year old, if I only take the time to listen. And that her favorite colors are really similar to her mother's, and her mother's mother color favorites.

I learned that my daughter's husband can call me Dad, and that I can think of him as my son. He has shown me the value of being the true leader of a family, rather than the dictator that I was. He learned that I don't know everything, and that I increasingly turn to him for advice. I learned that you don't always get a crab with every trap set, but that it was because of his bad luck.

I realized that my eldest grandson is not always buried in a book, but likes to chop wood with an axe. And that my eldest grand daughter is beautiful, (some have even commented that there is a resemblance to me), and rocks out to music through her headset as she heads toward becoming a teenager. And that they both love to explore and value the creatures of nature.

I learned that I am much more like my daughter than we care to admit. She learned that I wear a belt with my sweat pants, even though there are no loops. I learned that I can mark my initial "D" to label my bottle cap, but from her perspective it looked like the letter "A" and questioned why.

And I learned that it is lonesome at the Dock without them.