To My Unborn Grandchild

I have been knitting a yellow blanket, careful not to show any preference as to sex. Grandchild, whether boy or girl, I want you with a greed, a longing I have never felt so strongly before, even with my own children.

I want to love you and to supply in your life a special place. To be like a playhouse near your home, a place not without rules or standards, but different and smaller and less demanding than home. I want to sing with you and talk with you and read to you—as my mother did with my children.

I want to give you so much: time, toys, warm clothes, attention. I realize, however, that the most important gifts I can offer I have given you already, through your father, my son. Penny Allen, Bountiful, Utah