All four of my grandparents died before I was born. Yet, because my parents talked about them often, I know them, feel connected to them, and I love them. I really do. I daydreamed as a child of having grand adventures with them. After all, I did have grand adventures with two of my great aunts, who were ideal grandparent substitutes. I used to make one of them pretend to be my pet dog. I'd take her for walks on an imaginary leash and make her bark. I made the other feed me lemon slices and tickle my feet. Ideal substitutes but substitutes nonetheless. In my daydreams, my paternal grandmother would teach me to paint and to sew with tiny stitches. I'd tag along when she climbed mountains, and we'd laugh together. My maternal grandfather was my favorite. Yes, I knew them well enough to have a favorite. He'd take me out in the buckboard with buckets of water. We'd water the trees he'd planted all over the town. He'd tell me stories about growing up poor in Ireland in County Mayo God Help Us. When I grew older, he'd teach me to drive and to play tennis. We'd sing Sir Harry Lauder songs, and we'd talk about philosophy, Irish history, and life. When I was 8, I woke up one night, weeping. I'd had a dream about him, and for the first time I really understood that I would never see him, never hear his voice, never feel his touch. I knew my grandparents well enough to love them, well enough to have a favorite, but I never experienced the luxury of being grandparented.
Friends who are themselves grandparents tell me that they have an incredibly difficult time arranging to be with their grandchildren. They end up settling for a few hours here, a few hours there -- if not this month, then the next, or the month after. The children are being denied the luxury of being grandparented just as I was. But, I'll wager the children aren't told about their grandparents, as I was. After all the grandparents are still living. Unlike me, these children are also being deprived of the luxury, no, the necessity, of knowing their grandparents. Now that stinks!
It is odd you should post this. Earlier in the day, a friend of mine at work and I were discussing what horrid grandparents we had. Not all four, just one in particular in each of our cases.
ReplyDeleteActually mine wasn't all that bad, but she had this nasty tendency to tell of some poor neighborhood girl that got pregnant then gave me dirty looks as though it was my fault. We lived 70 miles away and I was too young to drive, so I certainly was not involved. Yet every time we visited, another girl was pregnant and she would spit out this mean invective and stare at me. How there were so many pregnant girls in this rural farming community was a riddle that I have never solved. Other than that, my grandmother was OK. She had her favorite grandchildren, which thank God, I was not one, because the fawning over them was insufferable. Far better to be one of the great unknown, but I am not sure why I got the pregnant girl lectures every time we visited.
I look forward to your comments. Little Red Riding Hood should have gone to this grandmother's house and eaten her all up. This comment could be turned into a play. It's "pregnant" with possibilities.
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