Finneran: A Glorious Decade

Friday, August 19, 2016

Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

No. I’m not talking about those first voyages of European “discovery” of “new worlds”. Nor am I talking about the earliest years of the founding of the Republic. Nor FDR’s stewardship of the United States through the horrors of the Depression and world war. Nor the early years of space exploration and lunar landings. Nor the bursts of scientific advance in medicine, in computers, or in gadgets of incredible productivity and convenience.

Rather, I’m talking about something more mundane yet more cosmic than all of those things. I’m talking about my oldest grandchild and her brothers and their cousins. For you see, my granddaughter Reagan is about to turn ten years old. Ten!

Listeners of my old radio show may have been bored to tears as I shared the wondrous growth of Reagan, from her tiny hands gripping my fingers to her fluent mastery of French and other things. I could not care less about the hopefully brief boredom of my listeners for I was a witness (once again) to the awe, the mystery, and the miracle of human life. And I was determined to give voice to that miracle. Strangely enough, I am still stopped by listeners of that radio show who invariably ask “how is Reagan doing these days”?

Stranger still is the phenomenon of becoming a grandparent. By then and by happy experience you’ve already mastered the biology of making a baby. By then and by definition you’ve already become a parent, fully aware and frightened I hope of the astounding responsibility that comes with your child. But parents are bewildered by the constant needs of an infant and beleaguered by bills, bosses, and the demands of their careers. Overwhelmed in many ways, they are denied the pure joy of the journey.

Not so with grandparents who are, by common definition, completely crazy about new life. We are, for the most part, playing the back nine of our own lives and we are enjoying the blessings of economic and professional freedom. Plus, generally speaking of course, we don’t give a bleep what anyone thinks about our grandparenting skills.

My wife and I have been blessed seven times in a decade of glorious fertility. Reagan’s birth ten years ago was followed two years later by the simultaneous births of her brother and twin cousins. Yes dear readers, all on the same summer day came twin girls and a badly outnumbered little boy. About eighteen months later two grandsons were born about one month apart, giving us three boys and three girls. The tiebreaker was a little boy, Declan, who just turned three and is delightful in every way.

The lineup is now Reagan, Braeden, Riley, Fiona, Kellen, Finn, and Declan. Speaking for myself I’d like to field either a full baseball team of nine or a full football team of eleven. Two more babies from each daughter might trouble the population police but, as noted above, I don’t give a bleep about their opinions and demands. Children are the oxygen of every society. They should be loved, held, and nourished, giving confidence to a nation and hope to a worried world.

Last summer I listened in awe as Reagan charmed our way around Paris, conversing with cabbies, waiters, and waitresses and helping her catatonic grandparents navigate hotels, restaurants, and directions to various destinations. As I listened in proud surprise (and in deep gratitude to her teachers), I carried myself back in time to October of 2006. Reagan was six weeks old, with a shock of dark black hair and a cute little nose. I had early morning Papa duty, giving her parents a few hours of extra sleep and giving myself the merriment of songs and stories for my infant audience. At some point that morning Reagan needed to be changed, and as I knelt over her doing the diaper drill she stared into my eyes and gave me the angelic smile of a lifetime.

Need I say more? I was already hopelessly hooked from the moment of her birth. Her smile that morning and her laughter ever since simply cemented the deal. Her cousins and her brothers are just as delightful, just as awesome.

It has been a glorious decade.

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.