Praying For Gas

Day Two

We thought Day Two of destination vacation would begin with an early morning continental breakfast, hotel checkout and then 'eastward ho.' It didn't work out that way. Turns out, Josh had endured a bad night and awoke with acute abdominal pain, so his mother called and spoke to the physician back home for an action plan. He recommended that we either take Josh to an urgent care for tests or to a hospital emergency room. We ended up doing both. An X-ray at Physician's Urgent Care was inconclusive in deciding between appendicitis, a virus, or another condition that I can't spell or pronounce, so they sent us to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital near Nashville's famous Music Row. Instead of heading toward Gordonsville, Virginia, there was a chance we were headed towards surgery.

After a brief stay in a gayly colored waiting room and learning that Josh's tests would take an undetermined time, JoJo, Joey, and I left Josh and his parents at the Children's Emergency Room and headed off to find a diversion for our oldest grandson. We drove down Music Row, through the beautiful campus of Belmont University, and collectively agreed that breakfast was a far too distant memory. I should have felt guilty for chowing down at Chago's Cantina, but confess that the pork belly tacos in lime sauce with red beans and collard greens temporarily put the whole crisis out of mind. We asked the waitress if she knew of a park nearby with a ball field of any sort, thinking that this would be just the thing to combine time killing with practice for Joey's upcoming state baseball tournament. McCabe Park was only three miles away, so after checking on Josh by text message, we proceeded to the ball field. A golf driving range adjacent to the field kept calling my name, but I ignored the summons and pitched batting practice to Joey for nearly an hour.  

It struck me while enjoying banter and play with Joey at the same time that his brother was having an ultrasound in a hospital strange to us, that this is the grandparent's frequent challenge--loving all grandchildren equally, while enjoying and responding to each according to her or his own personality, preferences, and 'sitz im leben'. Joey is nothing like Josh, who is different from Katie, who is older than Hannah, who does not resemble Hunter. Grand parenting may be grand, but it is sometimes harder than parenting in the first place.  Parents do well to learn the lesson of Proverbs 22:6, "Train a child according to his bent, and when he is old he'll not depart from it," and it may be easier for parents to follow that advice than for grandparents to do so. Maybe it comes from being one generation removed, but there seems to be an unwritten expectation that the parents of parents treat their grandchildren all the same. That is about as reasonable as it would be for someone to judge all taste buds according to the same standard of preference. Every child deserves customized parenting and grand parenting.

We received word that the tests did not reveal anything more for Josh than a significant bout of gas or uncomfortable case of constipation. It was the first time I can remember that having gas was an answer to prayer. It didn't take long to get back to the hospital, reconfigure the minivan, and resume our vacation trek toward Virginia. Grace is often easier to reflect upon than observe. Obscured by the press of the moment, grace is all the more poignant when the smoke clears. Josh is sleeping soundly in his car seat, we are headed east once again, and I am grateful for a Father whose nearness both defines and reveals Him.