Becoming a grandfather raises the stakes on everything else in my life, so I’m preparing to redefine myself accordingly and presumably be a better me.

Dear Granddaughter,

Let me introduce myself. I’m your grandfather-to-be. Please feel free to call me Poppa.

We can’t wait for your arrival in September. When your parents told us you were coming, I opened my mouth really wide and raised my eyebrows really high. I kept my face like that, speechless, for a full minute. Instantly I became drunk on the very idea of you.

Now just between us, I’ve never completely recovered from no longer having babies around. I still remember how it was with your uncle Michael, our firstborn, in those early years of his life. I kept him in my arms day and night. I could think of nothing else but him.

I recognized that his dependence on my wife, Elvira, and me was absolute and nonnegotiable. We comforted him or he cried. We dressed him or he went naked. We cleaned him or he stayed dirty. We fed him or he starved. Caring for his needs took me out of myself. That, as anyone who knows me will tell you, was a change of pace long overdue.

No one had ever needed me that much before. I had never even suspected I could feel so essential. It happened again when your mother, Caroline, was born. And I’ve missed that feeling for more than 25 years. Now, for the first time in decades, I’m looking forward to feeling that important again.

But here’s the hitch. I’m going to miss out on a lot of your early life. Your mother and father live in southern Italy. You’ll be growing up in Guardia Sanframondi, a hillside town about four times older than the United States. Meanwhile, I’ll keep living in New York City, probably for another few years. I’ll stay in a three-building apartment complex that has about as many people as your whole town.

So we’re going to be more than 4,000 miles apart, you and I. I’m going to have to make do mainly as a long-distance Poppa. And I’m really sorry about that.

Of course I’ll be in touch by Skype or Facebook Messenger and visiting you in Italy as regularly as I can. And I’m going to model myself after my own Poppa, my maternal grandfather, Benjamin Sheft.

Toward that end, I’ll be building on the tradition of unstinting attention and affection that my Poppa established. Once I get the green light from your parents on how you’re to be raised, I’m going to take you in hand all over town to show you off to anyone and everyone with a minute to spare. I’ll read to you from the best books as soon as you’re ready. And you can bet that we’ll play any sport you’re interested in trying — soccer, basketball, baseball, football, tennis, you name it.

This much I can promise you, too. You’ll be welcome to ask me about anything, anything at all, and I’ll tell you whatever I know. I’m going to hug and kiss you with all my heart and soul. I’m also going to make you laugh. And that’s because what I feel for you now is a love like none I’ve ever felt before. Chances are, I’ll never truly sober up.

And then there’s this. Within a few years I’m planning to settle down in the same town as you, in a house right up the cobblestone street from yours. And I’ll be a full-time grandfather. And with some effort and a little luck maybe I’ll get to be the Poppa to you that my Poppa was to me.

Already I see you everywhere I look. I see you in all the infants and toddlers in the parks and playgrounds. I see you in my daughter’s smile in the video showing her hearing your heartbeat for the first time. It’s no exaggeration to say that just by virtue of your birth, you are giving us a peek at eternity. I’m so high on you, I even see you in the sun and the sky and the stars and the ocean.

So welcome! You’re going to be the luckiest kid on the planet. You’ll get to be the next us.

Bob Brody, an executive and essayist in New York City, is the author of the memoir “Playing Catch With Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age.”