Day Four

Kind thoughts and good wishes continue to pour in; Greg, who used to colour my hair before I decided to go au naturel, asked me to come by the parlour today, and gave me two framed prints of baby, from pix downloaded from my website. Imagine - the boy at 3 1/2 days old is already framed on the piano! As friend Margaret wrote from Vancouver, the upside of this age of information is being able to instantly share each other's happiness. Thank the lord I don't tweet, because the outpouring would be incessant.

The truly great news is that Grandpa Ed arrived yesterday from Washington. Ed and I were colleagues in the theatre world of Vancouver in late seventies; we began dating in December 1979 and got married in May 1981, a week after the birth of our daughter. Our son was born in 1984, in Ottawa, and we moved to Toronto not long after. It was in T.O., with the pressures of the big city, the exhausting and relentless demands of his work, two small kids, my own floundering uncertainty, that our marriage succumbed; we separated in October 1990, the worst experience of my life, by far. Once lawyers were involved, a fairly amicable situation disintegrated; we even went to court. But when we saw the damage our discord was inflicting on our children, we simply made the decision to work together. And from then on, we did. He was always welcome at Christmas or family events or, in fact, anytime. The kids went separately in their late teens to live with him in the States.

Now he is happily married with a job he loves and a bright, hilarious nearly three-year old daughter who looks just like him, and he has come to town to meet his grandson and spend time with his grown-up children. He stayed here at the house recently when I was out of town, so I invited him to stay again - and he accepted. This morning, we were together under this roof for breakfast for the first time since October 1990, and how right it felt. We first met in 1976, when I was 25 and he 22; we have scores of friends to catch up on, mothers and siblings to discuss, and most of all, our grandson to babble about.

He is with Anna all day today, driving her in his rented car, I think, to get things she needs, like a breast pump, and then Sam and I will join them tonight for dinner.

Other great news: Anna's milk came in last night; the baby is nursing madly and slept from 12.30 to 5 a.m., rejoice. It's hot and humid, a record-breaking 31, like mid-summer already - and my rosebush, which usually offers 4 exquisite blooms, has popped out about 40 buds this year, ready to burst. And my mother is still too busy to talk - she has made a best friend, who's 90, and is at lunch and exercise class with her.

Gifts.