I am a first time grandfather

Yesterday 2-4-2009, Thursday, I was and am a happiest man on earth. the joy of a granddaughter coming into this world. My daughter gave birth to a bubbly tiny little baby girl at
1508 hrs at Mt Alvernia Hospital.
Nothing can express my joy when I visited my daughter in the ward and saw my granddaughter the first time. I quickly captured a snapshot into my mobile phone and post it as the wallpaper.
I just cannot take my eyes away from the sweet innocence of a baby sleeping peacefully in a world of her own, with everyone surrounding her with excitement and the world in economic turmoil.

No doubt my son-in-law Simon is very excited to be first time father, as I was 33 years ago, when I had my first daughter Endra. And now , with the ravages of time, my daughter has become a mother in her own rights. My son is 27 years. Graduated too and working.

Human procreation is a perennial process of the own universe, but alas! due to lifestyle and modernisation, many couples are not reproducing as they should, not like the past days of our parents where the family numbered into a dozen or so siblings and the joyous gatherings of celebration was an event of a family in itself.

We lamented the the demographic change in life of a small family. Children are brought up with higher education but lesser values of life and family cohesion and togetherness. We blame the passing of an era. We feel the sadness of isolation when our kids married and moved away on their own. We lose the warm of family unity and long for a return of the life we lost in just one generation. And the generation gap is drawn wider and deeper for each other's understanding.

We hope to relive the bygone era of greater family joy and cohesiveness. Human life must not regress but progress into a new century of greater harmony and unity of the family.

I am so delighted to have a bubbly sweet granddaughter. I am a grandfather now. Thank God.

posted on 3-4-2009
Patrick Lee S J