Day 7: G is for Grandparenting

 It’s an old joke:  If I’d known how much fun grandchildren were, I’d have had them first.  My three certainly have been more fun than I could have dreamed.  In fact, right now, my husband and I are making some huge life changes just to be closer to them.  Six hours away is too far.

I learned grandparenting from the best of them:  I still have great grandparents living when I married, and I only lost my last grandparent within the last eight years.  When I was born, I lived next door to my mother’s parents; my dad’s parents lived in the same county. One set were river people; the other, farmers. We had the chance to fish with them, to crank ice cream, to pick up jars of rain frogs, to slice the first ripe watermelon and eat it right out there in the field.

 Family stories were shared like heirlooms; family pictures were preserved, treasured,  passed on to be shared.  My best inheritance came not after their deaths, but throughout their lives, in shoe boxes and grocery sacks.  I have my great grandmother’s spinning wheel because my Mama Coats hid it in the barn for me so no one else would take it.  The cornbread cooling on my kitchen counter right now was baked in Mama Cheatham’s little black skillet.

I learned how to be a good grandparent from my own parents too.  They showed me that magical mathematics of love–it’s possible to love all thirteen grandchildren as completely as they loved the first one. With my children, they were the “young grandparents,” and yet now with great grandchildren, they still seem young.

One of the nice things about our plan to live closer to my grandchildren is that I’ll be  closer to my parents too.  Who knows, they might still have a thing or two to teach me about our role!