Well, four, but there is coincidence among them.
Our second-youngest granddaughter's birthday was Saturday. She was born on our oldest nephew's birthday, though he never met her, having passed away a few years previously.
I will never forget Chuck. I first met him when he was a boy and I was dating his aunt, in high school. He was a fun kid to be around, and as he grew he developed a strong love for the theater. But what I remember best about him was how he greeted me the first time I saw him after my well-deserved exile from the family. I don't know how much he may have struggled with it beforehand, but when he saw me he walked right up to me and hugged me, without hesitation. I've been blessed with much forgiveness and reconciliation, and I've since received such instant acceptance from others when they learn of my past, but he was the first, and I hope I always feel appropriately grateful to him for it. We were really pleased when our granddaughter was born on his birthday. Chuck had already passed on by then.
That weekend was the most incredible experience of life and death. After we went to the hospital to meet our newest granddaughter on the day she was born, on Wednesday of Thanksgiving weekend, we immediately departed for Maryland, where my wife's mom was near death. We had Thanksgiving dinner with the family, and on Saturday of that weekend, surrounded by her family, mom went home. Yesterday was the eighth anniversary of her passing. Her feelings toward and treatment of me were different from her oldest grandson's, though I didn't learn the extent of the former for some time. I respect that she always treated me respectfully - even affectionately - despite her internal resentment. I have come to believe that it can be a genuinely loving sacrifice to respond to someone in ways that are inconsistent with our feelings toward them, and I appreciate that she made it. (Our oldest grandson missed her funeral because he had an emergency appendectomy in MD.)
The other anniversary, which we observe today, is the passing two years later of my wife's dad. He took some time to come around toward me, but genuinely forgave me, and in the end greatly helped me to understand what I could and could not do about other family members' feelings. He became an advocate for reconciliation in his family, and time has unfortunately undone some of his efforts, although not for my part. He was probably a much better father-in-law than he was a father, especially with regard to raising his oldest sons. I came to understand that he regretted what he didn't understand when they were young, but I believe he ended up having solid relationships with each of them. He was a great gift to me, and a better influence as a father figure than I otherwise ever had in my life.
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