As you know, I love to take portraits of the people I like and love, this one was taken of Robin as she left, we were saying goodbye. She was tired, ready for a nap, but I do think we were each a bit sad to be saying goodbye to each other, we had a lot of fun. They say black and white photographs capture the soul, and I think this one caught a piece of Robin’s soul.

My very beautiful daughter doesn’t care much to be photographed – that has caused some tension between us at times, but my very beautiful granddaughter loves to be photographed, and the camera loves her back.

Our relationship is marked by continuous hellos and goodbyes, we are apart much more than we are together, and the good thing about that is that her growth and evolution is very visible to me, even if we are unlikely to ever know one another really well or be too great a part of the other’s lives.

I am not sad about this, but accepting. This is where I am, and I do not speak poorly of my life or pity myself for the choices I make. My time with Robin is lovely, and I know it matters. I just understand the boundaries of it, nobody is going over the top. Robin seems to know me and laugh with me, although she knows and loves a great many people. That is her nature.

I notice that we are considering one another more carefully. I see her often watching me, trying to place me, trying to figure out who I am and what I am in her life. All the other grandparents use Facetime and they have all assigned themselves names. I don’t  have a name for Robin to call me, I’m sure she’ll figure something out and it will not be anything I suggest.

I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I can hardly ever go where everybody else is.

I don’t care for Facetime, it seems forced to me, I really don’t know what to say and she can’t speak in sentences yet, yet I feel pressure to do something, so I babble and she stares back at me. I don’t quite see the value in that. A part of our relationship is trying to figure each of us out over a substantial distance and infrequent visits.

Emma is very conscientious about keeping Robin and I in touch with one another, mostly through the photos and videos and pictures she sends me. She is trying very hard to keep me involved in Robin’s life and I am trying hard also.

Robin and I do seem to reunite quickly and easily, I sense that she knows who I am, if not what I am. There is definitely something there, some chemical connection between a grandparent and child. We are, after all, blood.

I am happy to see her warm relationship with Maria, the two have much fun, playing with dogs, singing and dancing together. I must be honest, I am a bit circumscribed by age with Robin, as I am with little Gus.

I can’t move as quickly as I once did, and have to consider how I will get up before I can sit down on the floor. So our relationship will, by necessity, be more cerebral and less physical. I used to toss Emma up and down into the air and catch her, my former wife did not care for this play, but Emma loved it, although I doubt she recalls it.

I haven’t lost my gift for getting babies to eat, when I’m offering it, food zooms and weaves through the air like a buzzing bee, landing in an often open mouth.

It is heartening to see what a wonderful mother Emma is, she is intuitive, loving, patient and attentive to Robin. Robin is lucky to have a mother like that. In a month or so, I’ll take the train down to New York City and check in. Another hello, another goodbye.