It was late in the afternoon on a Thursday.
For me, at least. When the phone rang, it was already early in the morning Friday, September 19th, 2008.
I answered … and for a few seconds, all I could hear was a baby crying.
“Hello?:
Then a voice came on the line.
“It’s your granddaughter,” my son-in-law said. “She was born five minutes ago.”
The call was from Beijing, and Artemis Nicole Kastner — aka The Amazing Baby — had entered the world. Her birth was in Beijing, her mother Pauline’s second posting as a foreign service officer with the Department of State.
Ten days later, Nicole and I were on the other side of the Pacific Ocean and the International Date Line and I was enjoying one of the five best moments of my life. I was holding this wonderful baby on the couch in the living room of my daughter’s home in Beijing when she fell asleep.
For an hour.
I held her, crooned to her and made up little songs.
For an hour.
I had never actually fathered a child — both of my kids who I love to the moon and back are stepchildren. So little Arti contained none of my blood, but I swear I could have held her like that for the rest of my life and never wanted to stop.
For the next couple of years, Facebook and Skype gave us a first-rate look at our grandchild.
We spent three weeks with her in August 2009 at a wonderful vacation cabin at Snoqualmie Pass. She was almost walking then, getting around the room balancing on chairs, tables and couches.
Oh my.
She has lived in Beijing, Surabaya, Jamaica, Guatemala and Tunis, not to mention three stints in Northern Virginia so her mother could learn Indonesian, Spanish and Arabic. All before the age of 16.
Arti is a wonderful child who has experienced more of the world in 15 years than I have in nearly 74.
Happy birthday, little girl who is going from being the Amazing Baby to someone I am sure will be an Amazing Woman.
Your grandfather loves you very much,