By MARK MEDLYN, guest columnist

In January I was in our cabin in Brown County when my youngest son called from Champaign.

“Hey are you and Weebles (his nickname for his mother, which she is not fond of) home?”

“No, I am in Nashville. Your mother is back in Champaign. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, AMC (his wife) and I are just driving around and wanted to stop by,” was his reply.

He and his wife live two miles away. The odds of them just stopping by to see us is random, at best. I replied that his mother was home and he should stop by.

As soon as I hung up the phone I called my wife.

“AMC is pregnant,” I told her.

“How do you know?” my wife of nearly 40 years replied.

“Because they are stopping by, and they want to see us and that is not usual behavior for both of them,” was my reply.

My wife assured me that I was wrong. She said they were just out for a winter drive and they wanted to stop by.

My 38 years of police work assured me that there are no coincidences and that there was something afoot. When I called my wife later, she assured me that there was no baby news, they just wanted to say hello.

Later that week on my way back to Champaign, my son called and wanted to know what time I would be home. I told him around 5 p.m. He said that due to the pandemic, he thought it would be a good idea to get his wife’s mother, step-father, grandmother and her brother to come over for pizza. Something that we have never done before.

That cinched it for me. So, when we arrived at the house and all of family members were there I asked my wife how long she had known that AMC was with child. She said that she knew the night the kids came over for a visit.

In my wife’s typical way of doing things, the announcement that Elijah and AMC had did not go according to their script.

When they handed her the test kits that said “Pregnant” my wife looked at them and handed them back saying, “Congratulations, you’re not pregnant.”

Now why they would announce that they were not pregnant never crossed her mind. When my son said ”Wait, what?” My wife said ‘Well, AMC is not pregnant.”

At this point AMC says “No, we are expecting a child. The test strip says ‘Pregnant.’”

A few months later there was another middle of the night visit and they wanted to tell us the sex of our grandchild. I did not want to know, so I told my wife Debra and AMC to talk in the living room while I went upstairs.

Suddenly my wife exclaims “How wonderful! A girl!” loud enough that people in the adjacent county could hear us.

So much for being surprised when she was born.

The name was to be Jaclyn after Mrs. Kennedy and Jane after Debra and her mother’s middle names. AMC would add her maiden name so that the child will have four names.

When the day came this year on Sept. 23, we got the phone call in the middle of the night giving us the good news. Due to COVID-19 we were unable to rush over and see our granddaughter in the hospital. We learned how to use Skype to see the latest edition to the Medlyn family tree.

My daughter-in-law is a very independent woman, confident and self-assured. When we asked if she needed any help with babysitting, she replied that she would manage on her own and see how it goes.

That lasted all of one week.

I was in the cabin when a phone call came in the middle of the evening. It was from my son. AMC is in the emergency room and she is having emergency surgery in the morning.

Due to the fact that I take a sleep aid and had just taken it, I could not come over, but I told him I would be up at 4 a.m. and head back. In the meantime, her mother, who lives just blocks away, would take the shift with our granddaughter until Debra and I could get to the house.

A week later, I find myself with the 5 to 9 a.m. shift and I could not be happier. My granddaughter and I discuss world events and what life will be like when she is growing up. I assure her that her grandmother and I love her unconditionally and that she is just about the cutest baby that I have seen since my children were born.

Many years ago when Elijah was born, his maternal grandmother called and told me that she and her husband would be moving in with us to help us out. This had not been discussed with me before, it was just a statement of fact. Rather than protest, I simply agreed that it would be a great idea.

Grandparents are important parts of a child’s life. I never met my maternal grandparents as they died shortly after I was born. My paternal grandmother lived 600 miles away and I would make sure that I spent my vacation with her every year, even after getting married.

As I told my wife when we married, I will take you anywhere you want to go, but until my grandmother dies we spend our vacation up here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. For seven years we did just that.

As I join the Grandparents Club, I realize how everyday we can make a difference for not only our children, but our grandchildren as well.