First sight of a fading light

It's a Dad's Life:  The elder tells me she doesn't want to go and see Great-Grandad in the hospital. Why don't we drop her off somewhere else and go by ourselves? We can't do that, but agree that I will look after the kids in the waiting room while the missus visits him.

Curiosity wins the day and within minutes we have decamped to his ward, the charge being led by the previously unsure child. Great-Grandad sleeps for the duration of our stay, occasionally becoming animated due to the infection in his lungs. My mother-in-law is nursing him and is at hand whenever he appears in distress, but for the main part he just sleeps.

The kids stare. They advance and touch his arm. They ask about his drip and oxygen tube. They chat to us but their gazes always return to him. They aren't frightened or anxious and they know as much as we do about what will happen to him next.

This man is old, well into his 90s. I have known him, from a distance, for about 16 years. He has always charmed me. He has the air of a rascal and the jaunty grin of a Dickensian street urchin. The Dodger could have been penned for him. I have witnessed him hold court and listened as he wooed his wife in song on her birthday. He has always been open and friendly and fascinating. But his story, his reality, was always one step removed, belonging as it did to someone else's family. My experience of him was somewhat detached.

Until I saw him asleep with my children exploring him. They belong to him and they belong to me, so inescapably we belong to each other. And when the maths is done, the same applies to a multitude, spread across the globe and multiplying all the time.

All these people, whether near or far, taking the time to wonder how this man in this bed is doing. All affected by his fate, all linked together by the same. Not out of duty or obligation but through the bond of family, stretched like an unseen web around each one.

Family is huge. Its impact continually astounds me, whether through its presence or its lack in the lives of people I encounter. Family is where you love first and are hurt first, it's where you learn your moves in the dance you will take part in forever more with every person you meet.

We tend to downplay its influence, as if to shine a light on the power our closest links have over us might somehow undermine us as individuals. We may be able to take shelter in the umbrella of the blood ties, but we worry that we may not be able to leave. The web is intricate and sometimes its hold can be as binding as it is supportive.

We left the hospital and piled into the car. The kids seemed as marked by their excitement at running and skidding on the shiny hospital floor as by anything they had seen in there. Suddenly the elder pipes up: "I used to be scared of Great-Grandad. I didn't like it when he did Chin-Chopper [ his own patented rhyme that has been tickling and squeezing generations of kids for more than 60 years]. But I like him now and if he dies that'll be the end of Chin-Chopper. I think he wants to go and see Great-Granny though."

Then she tells me to stick on her High School Musical 2 CD, but not the first song because that's boring and can we go straight to No 6 instead and then go back to the second one or maybe just play No 6 a few times because it's her favourite and really funny in the film.