I’ve made up for missing all my children’s and grandchildren’s births

Well, Theodora did not wait and I missed yet another grandchild’s birth (the prettiest little blue-eyed thing ever, even if I say so myself). The funny thing is, I’ve never been able to be there when it counts. I missed my daughter’s birth because I was playing tennis in Palm Beach and got to the Bagel ten minutes too late (she rarely forgets to mention it). I missed my boy’s because I went to sleep and Alexandra chose not to wake me. My grandchildren Taki and Maria were born in Rome, and Antonius and Theodora in Salzburg. That makes it children and grandchildren: six; yours truly: 0. Nothing to be proud of but I make up for it.

For example, after my father died I instructed the household always to refer to me as the GP. GP did not stand for general practitioner or for great pretender, but for great provider. The children howled with laughter and mock anger, but the name stuck, and that’s what the kids called me until they grew up. Then the great provider became the great pest. Now that I have turned everything over to them and the wife, I am the great pain. Lolly has three residences, JT has four, and poor little me is down to two, both in the name of the wife. What I need is a GP, as in a great psychoanalyst.

Never mind. Up here in the Alps all I hear is ding-dong all day as the cows that surround me bask peacefully in the surrounding fields. The weather has been sunny and breezy, and I exercise all day. How ironic it is. When I was young and competing at a high level in various sports, I was always out of shape because of drinking, chasing women and staying up late.