The Window

The Window

Most Grandparents worry about their grandchildren.  They worry because they don’t think their children know what they are doing.  They don’t think their children know what they are doing because when grandparents were just parents, they didn’t know what they were doing.

We look back when our own little ones were in need of protection and we sometimes failed. 

My oldest, my daughter, should have been killed or seriously disfigured because of our…ok, my incompetence.

I was cleaning windows in the spring.  The dining room window was one of those sliding things that came out to be easily cleaned on both sides, and then replaced back in its track.  I had pulled this window out and cleaned both sides when the phone rang.  Instead of letting the phone ring and finish putting the window back in its track, I left it on the sill leaning slightly onto the window frame. 

While I went to the phone, a seven month old Mary Beth was crawling around the dining room, to be close no doubt to daddy.   The next thing I heard was a loud crash, the tinkling of glass and the screaming of a child.  Apparently a gust of wind had blown the window away from the frame and it tumbled down to the floor.

I ran into the dining room in a panic.  If I had just accidentally killed or severely cut my daughter, my wife was going to be really angry.  I found my scared and screaming daughter smack dab in the middle of the broken window, surrounded by shards of broken glass.

She was frightened, but uninjured, uncut, not a scratch.  I ran and picked her up shaking like the proverbial leaf.  The window was directly over Mary Beth when it was blown over.  It apparently hit a dining room chair directly on the top of its rail.  It shattered on the chair and the window frame came down surrounding my little girl but the glass shattered and fell also around but not on the crawling toddler.

They say God looks after drunks and little children.  On this day he was certainly watching at least one little child.

So, all you young parents, the reason your own parents don’t think you are capable of successfully raising a child is they know from experience that if you let your guard down for a second, stuff happens.  They fear you may not be competent, because they probably know the fact that you are alive to be a parent at all is a matter of their own dumb luck.