Grandkids are little people with hyper amounts of energy specifically designed to cripple, exhaust, baffle, fatigue, and wear out the people in their lives who are five and six decades older than them. They also happen to have the capacity to melt an old man’s heart.

I should know. I just spent parts and pieces of the last weekend with eight of these little critters. This morning, I am stretching out the kinks and icing down the parts that hurt.

When I married Marion, my G-kid quotient automatically doubled. I have three girls and one boy that are mine by blood. Through her, I have gained three boys and one girl who are mine by choice.

Zelda came to spend the night with me on Saturday. She is determined to learn to drive my utility cart. Dump bed. All terrain tires. It drives just like a golf cart. She’s 10.

I was about her age when Dad taught me to drive our tractor. My kids had a go-cart at her age. So, I was game to show her the ropes.

I moved out from behind the wheel and let her slip across the seat to take over. Her enthusiasm overflowed.

“There’s the gas pedal. More importantly, that’s the brake pedal on the left side.”

When kids first get behind the wheel of anything with a motor on it, they get excited. Excitement turns to speed. Speed turns into fear. Fear turns into panic. Without the brake pedal, trees get bruised, and noggins get knots.

“Take it easy at first. Just a little pressure on the gas pedal.”

She sits up on the edge of the seat, close to the steering wheel.

“I’m scared.”

“That’s fine. You should be a little scared. But don’t let that keep you from trying.”

She gave it a little more gas and off we went. At first, I was reaching for the steering wheel a lot.

“Why are you riding off the edge?”

“I can’t help it!”

“Pull the wheel to the right . . . not that much.”

After about five laps up and down the driveway, I propped my feet up and let her have it. I pretended to nap, my cap pulled down to my nose, one eye peeking out under the brim. She was in heaven. All smiles. All giggles. What I saw was that in a blink she’d be driving off to college and we’d never do this again.

Laura and Eric and their kids arrived Sunday evening. Thunder dog Ruby was with them. The house goes from zero to 90 whenever they show up, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I was sitting out on the back porch early the next morning. Coffee in hand. The house was quiet. Then came the shuffle of feet as Everett climbed up on the couch next to me.

“Grandpa, can I see your phone? I wanna show you Sonic the Hedgehog.”

Not too long ago his world was all about dinosaurs. Apparently, life is now all about some hedgehog who saves the world from evil. He opened up the browser on my phone and went through approximately 842 pictures of Sonic in great detail.

In case you didn’t know, Sonic can transform into Super-Sonic. He has friends and enemies who look just like him but dressed in different outfits. I’m gonna butcher this, but they have names like Shadow, Tails, Knuckles, Blaze, Silver, and Amy.

I was given a lot of Sonic information. Enough to start my own Sonic world, I’m sure. But I understood almost none of it. Every time I asked a question to show my interest, I got a “No Grandpa. It doesn’t work that way” answer.

Clearly, I don’t fit into the world of Sonic.

By lunchtime, the whole gang started showing up. Emily and Brandon came in with their crew. Hugs for little Naomi. Zelda asked to practice her driving. Charlie and Bobby came with Caleb and Cooper. Caleb and Everett are within 17 hours of being the same age. It wasn’t long before Shannen got there with Bryson and Reagan.

“Where’s Doc?” asks little Reagan.

That’s my grandfatherly name used by the kiddos on Marion’s side. For a while, my grandkids would ask Bryson and Caleb, “Why do you call him Doc?”

“Cause that’s his name,” they’d say.

“No,” they’d argue. “His name is Grandpa.”

I had to explain to them that since I’m not actually their real grandpa, but more like a stand-in, calling me “grandpa” didn’t seem to feel right. They started out calling me Mr. Paul, but I thought that sounded too formal. We needed something more personal.

There was a time when I was maybe 10 or so that my dad would call me Doc. He would imitate Bugs Bunny, “Ehh, what’s up Doc?” Or he would say, “Come on Doc, get in the truck.” But it never stuck. Half the time he’d call me Willy ‘cause my middle name is William. Thank God that never stuck.

Now, the whole Laster branch has latched on to “Doc” and I’m stuck with it for sure. The name has grown to fit me with them, and I’m good with that.

The air was full of kids’ voices. They played ball. Little Naomi and Reagan are within a couple months of being the same age. They played with the blocks of wood in my shop. The boys ran to me to ask if they could go down to the creek. And from time to time, they all piled into the EZ-GO and Uncle Marshall took them for a ride.

As I surveyed the day in front of me, my life felt full.

True confession. I am slow on the uptake.

In the early months of my relationship with Marion, I never really gave this probability much thought. She had her family. I had mine. I accepted the fact that there was a “hers and mine”, and I figured that’s just the way it would be.

I couldn’t see how two separate worlds could ever filter down into a heart that I thought was already full. I didn’t know that my heart could make room for more.

But as I made room for Marion, I realized an inescapable truth. All that is hers comes with her.

It’s not simple. There are emotions that cling to the past, and they come from every direction on both sides. The dynamics of family have changed for all of us because of death and loss and grief. The adjustments can sometimes seem overwhelming.

But little by little we are all learning and discovering that the boundaries of the heart are wider than we could ever imagine. The significance of “family” cannot always be defined by the blood that flows through our veins. We all have brothers and sisters from another mother. We all have friends who are as close as family, some closer.

I have learned that change doesn’t have to be perfect. Acceptance comes in its own time. Patience and grace cannot be forced. Love, above all, is indispensable.

And that’s how we all came to my house today.

It was worth the wait.