Leave it to the editor's son to deliver some very special news with words - and a book.
I had a suspicion something was up when my son - who inherited his father's usual stoic silence - seemed unusually insistent that his mother and I make the jaunt down to Virginia last weekend.
It had been in the works for a couple of weeks, but as usually happens this time of year, the weather was threatening to get in the way.
I spent most of the week looking at a forecast that was calling for snow in the Virginia area on Saturday. I emailed my son to ask him to keep me in the loop about the forecast. He uncharacteristically responded that he really didn't think it was going to be that bad and that we really should make the trip.
As it turns out, as usual the forecast was wrong. We sailed down to Virginia Saturday morning in bright sunshine.
The forecast was about to get even sunnier.
Once we arrived and exchanged greetings, Sean and his wife, Rachel, announced they had a belated Valentine's Day gift for us.
He handed his mother a package wrapped in bright red paper that had all the makings of a book.
But not just any book.
This was a copy of "Railroad Toad," Sean's favorite book when he was a child, one his mother read to him hundreds of times. His father? Uh, not so much.
I got it as soon as I saw the book. It took a few minutes for his mother. Then her son announced, "Now you can read it to your grandchildren."
Of course we were overjoyed. His mother cried.
But Sean was not done.
"I don't think you heard what I said," he announced. "Grand-CHILDREN."
Yep, twins!
His mother later produced the only word that could describe it.
Gobsmacked!
A lot of things have gone through my mind since that announcement. I thought about how different the world these kids grew up in is from the one their parents experienced, let alone their grandparents.
But most of all I thought about my son.
I remembered what I was feeling when my wife first told me she was expecting. I was never especially big on responsibility. Marriage was one thing, I could handle that. Barely. But a baby was a whole new realm.
It meant responsibility. Someone who was dependent on you for everything. It meant something I had desperately tried to avoid - being an adult.
I told my son not to make the mistake his old man had, not to fret constantly about money, whether you have enough of it, or ever will. I told him to enjoy every second of it.
He's a worrier. Like his father. I told him work is not the most important thing in his life. And I told him to do as I say, not as I do, knowing full well I had spent a lifetime doing the exact opposite.
He's going to be a great father.
Those kids' grandfather? Well as soon as "Pops" picked himself up off the floor, he could not stop smiling.
I can't wait to read "Railroad Toad" to my grandchildren.
I have a lot of catching up to do.
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