my grandson

This is not a puff piece. This is a sincere appraisal of the wonder that is my grandson.

Recently William came to help me with my various computer problems.  He does this periodically (regularly), dazzling me with his expertise, but so humble and matter-of-fact about his skill. I knew by the time he was in Grade Seven and I read some of his stories that he would be a writer. A writer, yes, but so different from my old-fashioned, limited knowledge of what constitutes a  writer in the twenty-first century. I asked him about his work, and it's a day job!  In my day, writers had had to have a day job but they were seldom paid for writing.  Help me get it straight, I begged.  Describe your job for me.

"My job," he writes, "is to write code in support of journalism. Sometimes that's tools for journalists to use for research, sometimes it's to tell stories. [I recognise that word!]  Right now I'm learning about how to build and manipulate scenes in 3D to help me tell stories."  

Got that?  He showed me a page of code that he had written and the as yet  unfinished project: a 3D map of a city,a special one, with a history, all of which William has researched.  

I thought of Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931): 

Your children are not your children....

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you....

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

                                                  How about grandchildren?