I wish this kind of joy for all of us!

More than a year and a half since we were able to hug and kiss our grandchildren. Until today!

Playing basketball and baseball (both sort of, with constantly changing rules), reading aloud “the WHOLE BOOK, Sabba” with a stuffed monkey and blanket on my lap while Ellie gets a tour to reacquaint her with (unchanged) kids’ bedroom.

In person, the kids are taller, bigger, clearer, cuter, louder, smarter, funnier…more delicious than ever!

And the pleasure of hugging their parents and seeing the modest changes in their abode.

Looking forward to the calm of Shabbat (an unrealistic aspiration in a house with four kids 9.5 to 4) and more time playing house, cards, chess, ball, and whatever else they want!

But wait — there’s more! On Sunday we get to be with the other crew of three (and their parents). And, later in the summer, our daughter in Israel is coming in for a visit!

Through the pandemic, we have kept up via phone and computer, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the squeezing, tousling, holding, whispering, teasing, laughing with a real live child.

I’m grateful for the vaccinations that enabled this relative freedom, I’m grateful that those in our family who contracted COVID emerged with (only) manageable long-term effects, and I’m happy to read “the WHOLE BOOK” again and again, to mess up the ball game rules and to lose, to play house, watch, listen and kvell.

I wish this kind of joy for all of us! It’s good for the heart.

Shabbat shalom!  שבת שלום