Oh, I bet I caught some of your attention thinking I have a big announcement about becoming a grandparent! No, for right now my only grandchildren are my grandpuppies, Maizy and Sevvy, and can I tell you how much I love these pups. I haven’t even met Sevvy in person yet and she has my heart and saying goodbye to Maizy in Denver was almost as difficult as saying goodbye to Maddie. I think I even said to Maddie–”How am I ever going to say goodbye to grandchildren when I can’t even get myself to say goodbye to this darn dog!?”
But my love for my grandpups is not the inspiration for this post. This past weekend I attended a shower and observed what I consider the epitome of a grandmother. I won’t mention any names but several of you will know exactly who I am talking about. This woman was busy helping in any way she could to set up, serve food, and clean up at the shower. She provided her favorite baked goods, some appropriate decorations and her gifts for the mommas were all hand sewn items from quilts to burp cloths. I watched in amazement and my future grandmother’s guilt came in. I’m never going to be able to be a grandma like that. Sure, I bake and I am an okay cook but it isn’t like my daughters request a favorite meal of mine or will be fighting for my recipe box when I am gone. And I can sew a straight line on a sewing machine (if it is all set up for me!) but I am not making anyone any quilts in the near future!
But then I thought like so many things in life, we have this picture of what the ideal ‘fill in the blank’ should look like and we spend our lives trying to live up to those standards or feeling guilty that we never do. I also thought about how generationally the picture of the “ideal” grandmother has changed. There aren’t many baking, sewing grandmothers out there anymore. Being a grandparent has changed with the times.
It is also difficult for me to completely picture the role of a grandparent because I did not have great grandparent role models. My grandparents on my dad’s side had both passed away before I was born. My grandparents on my mom’s side were both alcoholics. I loved them and we communicated on a regular basis. Every Sunday my mom called them and made us each take a few minutes to say hello. It was something that impressed me about my mom. Even though she had her own opinions and her own trauma that she dealt with being raised in an alcoholic home, she still wanted us to have a relationship with our grandparents. She did not want to take that away from us. She knew as we grew up we would learn more about who they were and then we could decide what kind of relationship we wanted with them. She did not feel like she should decide that for us. Your family is your family and there is no hiding from it.
Thus, my grandma was not baking any cookies when we arrived. My grandparents lived in Ashland, WI and every summer just like the weekly Sunday phone calls we would make the trip up to Ashland for our week long “vacation”. We would walk into my grandparents house after the 7 hour drive in the non-air conditioned car and we would barely get our hugs in and we were back in the car heading to the local tavern. As a little kid, it never really bothered me because I got a pocketful of change to play music on the jukebox, pinball, or pool. It was like a little indoor playground. Even when we got home after several hours in the bar my grandparents alway put on a little show for us. They would take turns taking jabs at each other and I would laugh at their jokes thinking they were entertaining us. As I grew up, the regular trips to the bar got boring and the old, drunken bar patrons got to be scary for a teenage girl. I also began to realize that the “shows” at the end of the night were not for entertainment but were actually awful fights in which my grandparents said the most cruel things to each other. The worst was on their 50th wedding anniversary when my grandma threw clothes at my now dying grandpa and told him to get dressed for their party because the first 50 years were all about him, the next 50 were going to be about her. I remember how embarrassed my mom was as she shuffled us off to get ready for the party.
My own daughters unfortunately have not gotten to experience many years of a grandparent relationship either. When they were born, they only had one grandpa and one grandma still alive. Their grandpa died when Marah was just a baby and Maddie was two so they do not have any memories of him. They had a wonderful relationship with their grandma (my mom) when they were young. They had sleep overs at grandma’s in which they watched all the television shows that my mom would record on her VCR tapes all week long to show them. She didn’t bake for them but they loved her toast–yes her toast!!! What was her secret–well, she would put a half pound of butter on each piece! Whenever we made toast at home, they would always complain that it didn’t taste like grandma’s toast😂 She passed away when Maddie was 12 and Marah was 10 but her last couple of years were difficult so there were not many sleepovers or toast. I was always sad at the girl’s sporting events, concerts, plays, graduations when I would see all the other grandparents there watching their grandchildren. I knew how much my mom and dad would have loved that part of their lives.
So even though I jealously observed what I believe to be the epitome of a grandmother this weekend, I realize that all of us who are lucky enough to become grandparents will do it in our own way. We do not have to be the best bakers or know how to make the best toast. We will just love our grandchildren with our entire hearts and create as many memories as we can and hopefully make the world a little softer, a little kinder, and a little warmer.
I know there are many of you who are currently grandparents, have watched your own parents grandparent your children, or had wonderful relationships with your own grandparents. I would love to hear some grandparenting stories, traditions, etc. Please share if you would like to.