April 12, 2018
To my darling Clementine,
What a determined girl you have already shown yourself to be. For 27 hours you struggled, pushing and pulling and stretching to enter the world . How bravely your mother labored with you all that time.
And Granshaw? I was blissfully unaware, going about my business in the ridges and valleys of Northwest Georgia, bragging to anyone who allowed small-talk that I would soon greet my granddaughter. I had no name for you and didn’t know when to expect you beyond the general window of “around April 8.” How I wish I could have been there to hold your mother’s hand, or run an errand, or been of some kind of use.
You gave us a real scare, you know. And even now, two days later, as Granny and I cross the continent many thousands of feet above the border between Louisiana and Texas, on our way to meet you for the first time, I know you are lying with tubes helping you breathe and feed, and straps pressing sensors to your skin to monitor your vital functions. Your wonderful parents are close by you, aching to get their hands on you, to hug you, to feel your tiny hands grasping fingers or hair. So are your Carlin grandparents and Aunts Sarah and Lillian, Uncle Jim and others. We are confident of your strength now, and know the day will come soon when we each will get that sqeeze. But, oh, how we long for it.
I wrote to your Mom when she was only an infant. I told her that I knew that she was a person of great strength. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did. And I was right. She is a person of character, and determination, and deep love. I have watched her with your Dad and see the love they share, and I see those same traits in my son-in-law, and now in you. You had a great struggle getting here, you persevered, and I know that those traits will carry you through the hard times and enrich the good times. I look forward to getting to see some of those times myself.
My father was named Granshaw by your cousin Joey. He said something about his grandfather and his Dad asked, “Do you mean Granddaddy Johnston?” “No,” Joey responded, “You know, Gran..Shaw!” Well my Daddy has been gone since 1986. When my sister Carol and Debi and Joan were sitting with me and my Mother and your Granny recently, they asked what I’d want you to call me. One suggested Granshaw. I wondered if I had a right to that name! My sisters seemed to like the idea, so I guess that will be it, unless, of course, you exercise every granddaughter's prerogative and give me a name of your own choosing.
I hope I get lots of chances to talk with you. but at 71 I suppose it is practical, if also a little morbid, to suppose I ought to be as proactive as possible, just in case. I want you to know a little about me, and Granny, and my parents, and theirs.... all the wonderful people who made me who I am, and who would love you just as much as I do. But I want to know all about you too! Your questions, and dreams, and wonders.
So this is Granshaw Letter One of, I hope, many. One of these days, I hope you will begin to respond yourself. Maybe till then your Mom and Dad will keep us abreast of all your doings across the continent.
I promise you this, for all the spins of this big globe, across all the miles between us, through every joy and deep into every sorrow, at the apex of every triumph and into the depths of every dispair, I will love you to the moon and back. That’s a promise.
So you can always look up at that old moon and imagine my love in an endless stream of kisses banking off its shining face from wherever I am and down to wherever you are, Clementine Georgia Carlin, my eldest granddaughter. I love you.
-Granshaw
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April 19, 2019
Clementine Georgia Carlin on Day One and Day Eight
