The following piece is one in a series of letters to my prospective granddaughter.
March 8, 2025
Dear Baby,
Earlier this month I attended your baby shower. I’m old enough to remember a time when showers were strictly women’s affairs, though I was present at your father’s baby shower (we still use the hamper his Aunt Susan, who hosted the event gave us). Actually, you might say there were two showers, or perhaps one two-part shower. The first was a family event held at your apartment—I reckon I can say “your” apartment because at four pounds in your mother’s belly you live there too—for family. The second was held at a brewery nearby that was held for friends. Your paternal grandparents hosted the former; your maternal grandparents the latter.
The thing I want to note here is just how many friends your parents have. Your father, for example, has high school friends. And college friends. And law school friends. And friends in his apartment building. Friends he plays basketball with. Friends he watches football with. Friends with whom he plays board games on Sunday afternoons.
I’m dazed and impressed by the sheer scope of these friendships. I have a clutch of childhood and college buddies, and past and current co-workers of whom I’m fond. To some degree, the fact that I have fewer than your dad is a function of age, and the fact—as your parents seem to recognize—that having children to some degree shrinks one’s world (though I have no doubt there are friends he will make as a result of you and your peers). But I also think, at the end of the day, if reflects a level of character and commitment on his part to maintain a thick web of ties. I assume they vary in terms of intensity and purpose. But that very variety is itself a source of tensile strength.
All of which augurs well for your future. I hope that you will prove to be a good friend—loyal, generous, steady in maintaining ties. I wish it for your sake no less than for those you befriend. Family is valuable to a great degree because it’s not chosen. But friendship is in its way a profoundly creative act. One I hope you will practice from an early age.