The Grandson

The grandson

This is Jakob, our first and so far only grandson, born last year in Stockholm, who celebrated his first birthday here in Cape Town yesterday. Of course it is a great and rather indescribable thing to be a grandfather – but these few lines are going to be about him, not me. I also do not intend to describe his immediate surrounding even though bearing in mind that we all are, to quite some extent, the product of our environment.
The question I rather want to put is this: who is this Jakob, this one year old boy who at any moment will exercise his human right of walking upright? There are many things I could say and I will select a few of them. I will start with the most important. When seeing him making his way on the floor towards a yet undefined object or hurrying out into the garden, either towards the scarce pockets of gravel that definitely is not suitable to put into the mouth, or straight towards the swimming pool, which is securely covered with a safety-net, what I see more than anything else is that this is a person of the future.
That makes me say that he also is the Personality of the Year. Not Barrack Obama as Time Magazine wants to think and already has decided upon. Their reason for putting Obama first is worth while quoting. Time states: “Barrack Obama is Person of the Year not just for what he’s done but also for what he’s moving quickly to do next”, (Time vol. 172, No 26, 2008, p.3).
Our Jakob has done a lot of things; for example he pulled down half a shelf of books in my study in no time and he made sure that they all were spread unevenly over the floor, but he did not tear any of the books to pieces. But this has now become a routine thing, to pull down whatever is within reach and throw it, if at all possible, on the floor. However, there are new things a-coming and in his whole attitude there is something of the future in him. He is literally what Time tries to state about President elect of the United States, Barrack Obama, he is moving on quickly to do the next thing.
His whole being is filled with what is to be his future; so he moves on. He is forthright and undaunted; he quickly sets up a goal and then goes for it. He is excellent in taking initiatives and more often than not, as I just have stated, for the last couple of months he has learnt to excel when it comes to have a grip of something and then throw it away, with emphasis; but I gather that this is a phase in his life that soon is going to fade away. Once a walking grandson he will probably change strategy.
What will in all likelihood stay however is his sense of curiosity. It is ever present. Highly prioritized is also of course to go for that which is unknown and perhaps dangerous. A mother or a father, or even any of the other ‘grand’ parents, or even an uncle or aunt, will be there and say stop. You can go this far but not further. The personality of the year then exhibits two characteristics which I find absolutely fascinating, characteristics that may be emulated, at least in combination also by adults.
If Jakob for example ventures into something that he had not tried before and you stop him he gets quite angry and would cry a bit. If you tell him in so many words, a bit sharply, to stop doing what he is trying to do he instead pulls of a decided laugh; quite unexpectedly he actually laughs at you. You are disarmed, but due to circumstances you probably just have to stop him anyway; too bad.
These two characteristics in combination I think are almost human virtues. To get angry or cross is always detrimental to the one acting out the anger almost without exception. To combine a slight anger with a bit of humour and laughter could perhaps be just the right thing to do for us humans. One would actually at best combine honesty and truthfulness with disarming and perhaps self-ironic humour and laughter. Why not?
Finally and what impresses me more than anything else is his apparent trust in other people, also strangers, mostly. This is great. What a wonderful gift to us adult, if we could emulate that!
So the personality of the year was one year old yesterday. This day will not be easily forgotten as that was the day when he climbed Table Mountain, at the back of his father, that may be, but nevertheless; numerous other people climbing with us up the Platteklip Gorge made their encouraging comments regarding the youngest ‘climber’ in sight, so the hundreds of people on the same trek felt like the greater family bound for the same destination.
Jakob, thank you for making sure that I also could become a grandfather.