My grandson is four years old today, this very special Twosday, and he is buoyant and bright and a bit of a blur as he dashes past me en route to the bouncy house with his cousins. His imagination and expectations and energy are boundless.

His mother, my daughter, has a very light complexion, naturally strawberry blonde hair, and clear blue eyes. His father is of Nigerian descent, with very dark skin, dark hair, and dark deep eyes.

My grandson doesn’t yet notice the occasional sidelong glance from a passer by. He doesn’t yet take note of the fact that most of his friends have matching parents. He doesn’t yet know that there used to be – and still are – people within a day’s drive who think he is an abomination, who would harass and even harm his parents just for being who they are, and together.

He has never yet been afraid.

Life for my Child Is Simple
     by Gwendolyn Brooks

Life for my child is simple, and it is good.
He knows his wish. Yes, but that is not all.
Because I know mine too.

And we both want joy of undeep and unabiding things,
Like kicking over a chair or throwing blocks out of a window
Or tipping over an icebox pan
Or snatching down curtains or fingering an electric outlet
Or a journey or a friend or an illegal kiss.

No. There is more to it than that.
It is that he has never been afraid.

Rather, he reaches out and the chair falls with a beautiful crash.
And the blocks fall, down on the people's heads,
And the water comes slooshing sloppily across the floor.
And so forth.

Not that success, for him, is sure, infallible.
But never has he been afraid to reach.
His lesions are legion,
But reaching is his rule.