Beliefs

Adam is eight years old and still believes in Santa Claus. This will probably be his last year of magical bliss as he is a sharp kid and his questions are starting to outnumber the answers. He has a deep passion for fantasy and this is one of the things that binds us closely. I wonder too if there is another world slipping and sliding around the natural physical one we tromp through. We silently and not so silently wish for fairies dancing on summer eves and angels hovering over sleeping children and spirits, good spirits that go bump in the night, but only a little bump. I tell my grandson that Sonny, his great grandfather has always said that he believed in the elusive Mr. Kringle. Into my adult years I would periodically question my father. And he never wavered. So, Dad, is there a Santa Claus? And I would settle back to watch the show, the twinkling eyes, the slightest of smiles, the man loved fooling his children. Of course, he quipped, I believe.

Sonny chuckles when I remind him of this story. We talk about Miracle on 34th Street with the elfin Natalie Wood cozying up to the bearded kindly fellow. My father relates the last scene when the old man's cane is found leaning against the fireplace tantalizing the audience to question what they thought was real. It aways made him shiver. There is still a lot of child in Sonny, a solid reason to love him.

Adam has more questions. The Easter Bunny? No way, I tell him, such a fake, those huge plastic eyes that never blink. Tooth Fairy? Another stretch, I say. It can't be Mom, argues Adam, why would she want all those teeth? Well, I have to agree with him.

We grandparents watch and wait as the children grow. We are lucky to be involved in this process a second time around. We're not plagued with those doomsday feelings we had as young parents. We don't worry that we are making gargantuan mistakes, turning the children into cold, soulless psychopaths or serial killers and social deviates.

We know childhood days are fleeting and too soon these youngsters will be moody adolescents with guarded looks and you wait for years, sometimes years, until they come up for air and look around them and realize you have always been on their side. And I will tell the future generations that I am blessed to see that like their old grandpa Sonny, I still believe.