We have a granddaughter who at two years old, shows remarkable empathy. When she wasn't using words yet, and when her mother had her tonsils out, she would pause, and in softness, look at her mom and reach for her throat. She was asking with her eyes how her mom was doing. Her mother would reassure her that her throat was getting better.
When Tony had his biking accident, she had to see him everyday, whether in person or by FaceTime--to inspect his wounds. If I were talking to her, only a few seconds would pass before she asked for "Bapi Tony." When she visited her other grandparents she pointed to her hip, her shoulder, her ribs and explained (in sentences now) that Bapi Tony had broken these bones.
On Halloween, her two grandmas, me and Heidi, and her parents went trick or treating. As we walked, she always checked to make sure everyone was accounted for--looking for her Dad if he'd lagged behind or to the sidewalk ahead for her mother. She is our little sheepherder.
While eating out for lunch one day, she kept dressing Tony's arm with bandaids--the paper wraps holding the napkin around utensils.
Nature or nurture? We now have twelve grandchildren, each raised by different parents in different circumstances: different states in the midwest, west coast, and rocky mountains. I could write pages on each child: their idiosyncrasies, their tenderness, their intelligences; their meekness, their bravado.
Most significant is that each child is born already formed in personality as distinct as in physical form. Teddy looked like his great grandfather. Some of the children were born bald. The yellow-haired children of the dark-haired parents. One child will be large in stature; others will be petite.
If anything, my own children and grandchildren force me to believe in a primordial beginning that shaped who we are as much as we are shaped into "who we are" on earth.
And I think, one of the secrets to success is staying true to who we originally were.
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