My good friend Odysseus once said that someday I would explain this, so here goes:
My beautiful granddaughter Georgia just turned two. For her first six months,
she was totally involved with her mother and her grandmother, my wife, who babysits
her forty hours a week while her parents work. As much as I loved her from Day One,
I never imposed or pouted. I just bided my time, watching and waiting from afar.
The TV is too often on in the background of our home. My wife is a TV junkie.
She always has been, God bless her. Anyway, for the baby, my wife would almost
always have on either PBS children's programming, old movies, or one of the cable
TV music channels. If the music was on, I would come in and ask the baby which one
she wanted to listen to. I would then scroll through, and pick the genre to leave on
based on her reaction. From the time she began to respond until even now, she has had
a strong affinity for the 40's era, swing, big band, and jazz standards from Grappelli
and Reinhardt to Coltrane. She and I began to bond musically. She's had a drum kit, old
parlor guitar and electronic keyboard from the beginning. She plays them all, in her fashion.
But all of that is just so that I can tell you the real point of this never ending story.
As Georgia began to try and speak, she would point to or hand me the TV remote, and say
something that sounded very much like the title of that catchy Hanson hit, MMMbop. I would
cycle through the music and she would most often settle on Sinatra, Ellington or her favorites,
Ella Fitzgerald and Tony Bennett. She loves Tony Bennett. At a year and a half old, she would
point to the TV and stop and listen every time she heard his voice. Anyway, we came to think of
her first word, MMMbop, as her word for music. Turns out that was only half the story, because as
she became more and more vocal, that word was being used in any situation where she expected me to
respond. And then the word became "Oomba", and we realized that it was her word for me, her grandpa.
Everyone here now refers to me as her Oomba. We are as inseparable as the other, less necessary people
in her life (her parents) allow us to be. She is the love of my life, or should I say the other love.
I have been in love with her grandmother for almost forth years now, so that has to count for something.
But nothing ever prepared me for the way I feel about this child. She has given me a real purpose in my
declining years. I hope at least some of you here know how I feel. I adore her. And you know the best part?
She feels the same way about me.
