I was blessed to have two pairs of loving grandparents well into my young adult life. I still remember the shock when my Dad’s Dad died suddenly at the age of 86 from a cerebral hemorrhage. He had actually been out playing golf that morning before slumping over after finishing lunch at home with my grandmother. I had been to visit only weeks before and had taken the last photograph of him posing with my grandma outside their home in Kansas.
I loved all of my grandparents and always felt loved back by them even though we didn’t get to see them except on holidays and maybe for a few days during summer vacations. Every child should have grandparents who thinks she is wonderfully special and a grandpa who gives bear hugs that squeeze the life out of her for a second when arriving for each visit. I only once remember meeting my maternal great-grandmother (she had 12 children I believe) and lots of relatives and cousins at a family reunion picnic in a park when I was quite young. My other great-grandparents were not alive when I was born I guess. Going to my grandparent’s homes was always an adventure. They lived in the same town so we could visit both pairs by taking turns staying at each house. My older sister and I sometimes got to visit all by ourselves and stay for a week or so, we felt so special.
When I get out the holiday pieces I think of them and can see the lay outs of their homes and kitchens. The cute corner lot that one house sat on so that you could use the front or the side entry depending on where Dad parked. There was a school playground across the street with the old style metal swings and slides. Across town the other grandparents lived in a delightful, two story farmhouse with two porches a barn and a chicken coup originally, before they developed part of their farmland into a housing development and built a nice new one story home alongside all the other new homes.
I hope that our grandchild on the way will enjoy visits out to the ”wild west” to see S. and I and that we can demonstrate that unconditional love that we were the recipients of.
S. only got to know his maternal grandmother as the others had all died before he was born. His “Aunt Lucy”( she was actually his Dad’s cousin) lived with his parents in her own little apartment at their house in her final years and was quite a colorful character. I got to know her too after I married S. I have her pretty glass punch bowl today. I also have my paternal grandma’s glass relish dish and china and some of S.’s mom’s serving things too. There are two pressed glass bowls that I remember her serving cranberry salad and other foods in at the holidays. She also gave me a plain glass candy dish with a fluted edge that was her grandmother’s and a tiny ribbed glass set of cream and sugar servers that belonged to her mother. I got two small glass candy dishes and some lovely silver serving pieces from my Mom when she and my Dad downsized this year from a two story home on a big lot to a condo in the city. I treasure all of these things as I think of these loving relatives and their family legacy to us. The glass items are just silicon shapes but they have value to me in the memories they carry.
We hope to gather in two of our children, one son-in-law and his friend and maybe Steve’s sister for our Thanksgiving Day this week. We have much to be thankful for in those who have gone before us.
Lou
