The Jeep Liberty Renegade I bought my granddaughter

It wasn't the heavy duty tires or the unbeatable price of thirty-nine ninety-five or the improved statistics on rollovers that prompted me to buy the Jeep Liberty Renegade for Emily.

It was the way Emily laughed with joy at being mobile as she caromed through the baby department at the Burlington Coat Factory store. It was that her face erupted with bursts of glee when she thought we were chasing her. It was that she would speed up and look back dauntingly.

It is that I love being her grandmother.

We took umbrage, I on her behalf, that they wanted to sell us the pink and yellow girl's model rather than the red, yellow, and navy one in which she was cruising.

That's the one we bought, the one she races around in in the office, the one that's made her mobile enough to get to know the staff of LareDOS.

Have you been here lately? A rocker and a booster chair have been incorporated into the office furniture. There's a crate of toys and books and a real Jack in the Box nearby in case you had thoughts that we're to be taken seriously at this-here periodico-journal of the borderlands.

On the best of days, Martha might bring Emily downstairs, so that I can have lunch with her, or I will go upstairs. When Martha needs to vacuum or when it's time for her to walk to the plaza to pick up her own children, she asks if Emily can stay with me for a little while. “Are you too busy? Do you mind?” she asks as though she might be interrupting something really important.

Is she mad? Miss my daily play at “¿On'ta la muchachita?” The most important thing I do on any given day is hold Emily, kiss her, tell her I love her, and sing to her the songs my parents sang to me and a few new ones.

There are so many lovely, endearing aspects of Emily's development, moments in which she is experiencing something for the first time or saying a new word, the sound she makes to express approval for her first taste of a fresh strawberry, kiwi, or a peach.

How could I have known that my own life as it has moved, spun, stopped, spun and started again, following what has seemed at times a disorganized, uncharted trajectory, was in fact moving with purpose to grant me the profound experience of loving this dark-haired child whose eyes dance merry and sweet.