[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 78 (Thursday, June 13, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5501-S5503]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            GRANDPA DASCHLE

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, with great pleasure, I call attention to a 
new Democrat's having been brought forth in this Congressional election 
year. With even greater pleasure, I point out that our distinguished 
majority leader has become a grandfather for the first time.
  This new Democrat, Henry Thomas Daschle, arrived with the angels last 
Friday. Being a Democrat, I always welcome a new member to our party. 
Being a grandfather, I know the joy and pleasure that a grandchild 
brings.
  There is nothing so wonderful as cradling in your arms a swaddled 
baby. It awakens in one so many emotions. It is a one-of-a-kind 
experience. A newborn fairy glows with freshness and the promise of the 
life to come.
  But a grandchild is beyond special, and the birth of one's first 
grandchild is an experience nearly beyond verbal description.
  The birth of one's own child is tempered by a certain apprehension. 
With this fragile baby, there also comes the responsibility of 
protecting and molding a tiny, dependant creature until adult status 
arrives. Parenthood is truly a delicate balance of bounteous love and 
serious responsibility.
  But to become a grandparent and to see oneself being projected on, on 
into the eons in the future, one has really reached his first plateau 
of immortality. It is a higher plateau. It is a completely different 
kind of experience. It is pure joy. As a grandparent,

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the diapers that one changes will be because one volunteers to change 
them. Won't have to do it. Somebody else can do it. But one volunteers 
to do it.
  Shameless spoiling can be the order of the day without guilt. You can 
spoil those grandchildren and then let the parents take them home. 
Elder wisdom can be meted out with the sure, certain knowledge that 
admonishments will follow to ``listen to Grandpa. He is wise.''
  The first grandchild, so delicate, and yet so determined to join this 
turbulent but wonderful world, stirs the heart and vividly demonstrates 
man's enduring link to the eternal. A grandchild is the sweetest, most 
profound measure of time's passage. In innocence and promise, that tiny 
being links generation to generation and embodies mankind's persistent, 
stubborn hope for a brighter future in spite of the difficult lessons 
of the past. As Carl Sandburg said: ``A baby is God's opinion that life 
should go on.''
  A grandchild is living, breathing proof that significant components 
of the fortunate grandparents' DNA will still be in evidence hundreds 
of years hence. Grandpa's dimples or Grandma's curly hair will most 
certainly be remarked upon by future family members as they compare 
their own likenesses with treasured old photos in the family album.
  Grand babies and great grand babies are part of the long continuum of 
mankind's collective experience on this lovely sun-washed planet. They 
are the reason we occupants of planet earth strive to make life better 
and commit our resources to alleviate suffering and disease. The entire 
rationale for every effort to improve our world, and the millions and 
tens of millions of good works toward that end performed by homo 
sapiens across the whole panoply of history, can be understood in an 
instant when one hears the tenuous first cry of a newborn child. It is 
a wonder beyond wonders; an affirmation of God's love; and a tangible 
demonstration that hope is not a futile emotion. And so today, I would 
like to dedicate these few beautiful lines by William Wordsworth to 
Henry Thomas Daschle and to Grandpa Daschle:

     Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
     The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
     Hath had elsewhere its setting,
     And cometh from afar;
     Not in entire forgetfulness,
     And not in utter nakedness,
     But trailing clouds of glory do we come
     From God, who is our home:
     Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

  I extend my heartiest congratulations to Senator Daschle on his first 
grandchild, and I wish the best to his son, Nathan and wife Jill, who 
also had an important role in last Friday's grand happening.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Reed). The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend from West Virginia, the 
distinguished senior Senator, how much I personally appreciate these 
kind remarks about Senator Daschle being a grandfather.
  On the floor is my friend from Vermont. We have spent so many 
pleasant months, spending hours, I am sure, talking about our own 
children and how we look forward to being able to visit with our 
grandchildren. Senator Daschle will be a great grandfather. It takes 
those who are grandparents to really tell Senator Daschle, it will take 
a little while before he really appreciates what it means to be a 
grandfather, to see those beautiful children. No matter how calculated 
you try to be, you see those children as you.
  I also congratulate my friend, Senator Daschle, on the birth of Henry 
Thomas Daschle. I have seen a picture of him, and as Senator Daschle 
told me, as far as I am concerned, he looks just like him.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President if I might add, I saw the same picture. 
Actually, Henry Thomas Daschle is better looking than our distinguished 
majority leader.
  We have so often rancorous debate, we are always so busy, it seems 
our dear friend, the senior Senator from West Virginia, knows best when 
to come to the floor and bring us back to the human side of the Senate. 
He, knowing the Senate better than all of us, brings us back to the 
human side with poetry. My late mother used to read the Congressional 
Record every day looking for poems by Robert Carlyle Byrd.
  And today to have those who are grandparents, as Senator Reid, the 
distinguished senior Senator from Nevada said, to pass on this wisdom 
to our majority leader. He is going to get this wisdom from us about 
being grandparents whether he wants it or not, but we will pass it on. 
It is the most wonderful time of your life. This will be the first of 
two this year, and that makes it even better.
  I might say to my dear friend, the majority leader, this is a very 
fortunate grandchild to have him as the grandfather, just as the 
parents are very fortunate to have Tom and Linda Daschle to love and 
help this child.
  The Leader will find there will come a time as the child gets a 
little bit older and is able to come to you with unreserved love, 
wanting to be with grandfather, as busy and as peripatetic a life as 
have the busiest people, with the greatest responsibilities of anyone 
in this country, all of that will come to a screeching halt when that 
child--my dear friend from West Virginia and dear friend from Nevada 
know--climbs on to your lap and says, grandpa, can you read me this 
book or read me this story. It has probably been read a dozen times 
before. I don't care whether your hotline is ringing, I don't care 
whether 99 Senators are calling, I don't care whether the President of 
the United States is calling, I don't care who it is, you will find, of 
course, that book that you read 10 times already naturally, to get it 
right, you have to read it again. Your whole universe will go around 
that.
  I congratulate you. Those who have been there know it truly is the 
best part of life. It goes beyond all the things you have accomplished, 
which are so great. And it was your children who did the accomplishment 
for you. It is the best of all possible worlds.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am humbled and extraordinarily grateful 
for the generous words of my colleagues. Senator Byrd has honored me 
once several years ago when he was gracious enough to nominate me for 
the position of majority leader. Oftentimes his words are repeated in 
introductions all over the country, and I have not forgotten that 
special moment. I will be forever grateful to him for those words on 
that day.
  But I must say I am equally honored this afternoon that Senator Byrd 
would come to the floor and honor my grandchild as he has. This is a 
very joyous occasion for my family. I must say, I believe that the 
words just spoken will probably be read and spoken and reiterated and 
kept and treasured longer than the words spoken about my nomination as 
majority leader. They will probably terminate when I pass, but the 
words spoken to my grandchild will go on for generations. So his 
willingness to come to the floor and speak as he has means so much to 
me.
  I would also say, as much as I have learned from him as a Senator, 
that may pale in comparison to what I think I may learn from him as a 
grandfather. So I thank him for his kindness and for his willingness to 
make this moment in our lives even richer.
  I do not have two dearer colleagues in the Senate than I do in 
Senator Reid and Senator Leahy. They are like family to us--to my wife 
and my children. For them to join Senator Byrd on this glorious day 
means so much to me. I am grateful to them for their generous words and 
for their willingness to join in this colloquy.
  I had a special day today that I shared with Senator Byrd. Just this 
morning my daughter called very excitedly to say our second grandchild 
will be a daughter. She will be born sometime in late October or early 
November. So we will have one grandson and one granddaughter this year. 
I cannot be more blessed. I cannot feel more hopeful and happy than I 
do today--first, to have the recognition for our grandchild and, 
second, to know that this joyous occasion will be extended by yet 
another grandchild, who will be a granddaughter, later this year.
  One of my friends once said that our children and grandchildren are 
messages to a future we will not see. I thought a lot about what that 
means, the kind of message we are sending. I can only imagine the 
message the Byrd grandchildren and the Reid grandchildren and the Leahy 
grandchildren

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will be sending to that generation, that future we will not see. They 
will send a message of love, a message of stability, and hope, a 
message that they have taken from their grandfathers and grandmothers 
with such abundance.
  It is a message about this country that is embraced in these three 
Senators and passed on to their children and grandchildren, a message 
that I think makes this such a special country. It is a country that 
for so many reasons gives hope and new faith to future generations 
through our children and our grandchildren.
  I hope we can send a strong message to those future generations 
through our grandchildren--by reading them books, by loving them, by 
giving them the attention they deserve, by changing their diapers--when 
we want to, and by recognizing what a glorious miracle life is, in the 
eyes and faces of those tiny grandbabies who grow up to be the leaders 
of a wonderful nation.
  I, again, thank my colleagues for their generous words and for making 
this such a special moment for me as a Senator.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. May I be so bold as to close this pleasant interlude with 
these words to Henry Thomas Daschle:

     First in thy grandfather's arms, a new-born child,
     Thou didst weep while those around thee smiled;
     So live that in thy lasting sleep,
     Thou mayest smile, while those around thee weep.

  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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