Grandparents

It's happening again.  I'm sitting by the computer, alone in the living room, late in the evening, soft music coming from the TV and only one light on, and I start getting introspective.  Not in a bad way; not lamenting something in my life or anything like that. Just thinking back to the past, not for any real purpose, but just remembering.  While thoughts like this can come to me at any time, it's times like this where I get the urge to post about them.  So here you go.

These are just some stories, and certainly don't encompass all of my memories.  Just ones that occur to me at this moment.

All four of my grandparents are gone, my grandmother passing about 15 years or so ago (is it bad that I can't remember the exact year?).

My grandfather on my dad's side died in 1979 (I was 8), and while I have a lot of memorable images in my head, I don't have that many experiences in my head.  I remember playing with the little bowling pins he had that were (I assume, if my memory serves) earned as various bowling awards.  I didn't know any better at the time, though.  I just knew that they were bowling pins and that they fell down if I rolled a ball at them.  I don't remember his voice, though, or any specific experiences.  To put it in modern terms, I have a lot of photos in my head, but no videos, if that makes sense.

Thankfully, our immediate family was spared any further deaths until my grandmother on my dad's side died, the summer after my first year of college.  I remember my brother and I rushing home one weekend because we thought the end was near, but she bounced back pretty well.  My brother had a major project due (or something like that) and so we actually came back on Saturday night.  I completed my freshman year and then she died that summer.  I think I was the last person she said anything to, but I'm not sure.  Her, I remember quite vividly.

We spent Christmas Eve down at her house (Christmas Day was with my mom's family) and we always had a lot of fun.  She lived in a very small house, so we eventually started going to my uncle's place, which was much larger.  We played games before dinner and after opening presents.  We used to tease her all the time when we were playing Push Rummy, when she couldn't draw the right card and her hand would get so full that she had to set some cards down on the table.  We used to playfully accuse her of trying to cheat when she would then forget they were there.

Of course, once I reached a certain age, mowing the yard moved from being Dad's job (and then, for a while, my brother's, and though I don't have any memories of him actually doing it, I'm sure he did) to mine.  And that also involved going down to Grandma's and doing hers as well.  Before I could drive, my brother would drive me down and then do some odd jobs for her while I mowed the yard.  (I'm being charitable here and assuming that he did, because I don't remember him doing that either, but I also don't remember him just sitting on his ass watching me, so he must have been doing something).  After I was done, she made us dinner if we could stay and we had a really nice time.  I remember one night quite vividly, her making tacos for us.

She was always a church-going woman, and while Grandpa was still alive, they would drive up the hill and pick my brother and me up and take us to church.  After Grandpa died, she relied on other church members to bring her (she never learned to drive) and thus we stopped going.  It was too much of an imposition on them to go out of their way like that.  We did go a few times on holidays, though.  She was always a religious woman, but I also don't really remember her pushing it on anybody.  As an adult now, I really value that in a religious person.  Anyway, at one point after Grandpa died, we got her an unlisted phone number, but there's always the chance of a wrong number.  One night, she got a wrong number call, and it was a troubled youth.  I have no recollection of what his/her problem was (I think it was a male), but I do remember that she talked to him for quite a while and believed afterward that she had really helped him.  She always believed that it was God's will that made him dial that wrong number.  We'll never know, of course, but it's a nice thought.

My grandparents on my mom's side survived until I was established up in Chicago.  My grandfather lived to a ripe old age, but sometimes in the last few years I'm not sure how much he knew/remembered.  It became kind of a running family joke how he would tell the story about the really bad snowstorm when the roads were blocked, and how he used the bus he was driving at the time to clear the way for the other cars.  Sometimes he would call us by the wrong names, or one of us other grandkids by the wrong name when he was referring to them.  But we still loved him dearly.  I remember their house quite well, Christmas dinners down in the family room where his TV was.  He would watch the Cubs games down there.  He had been hard of hearing for a long time, so he always watched it with the sound down.  He hated the announcers anyway, always saying that he didn't need some guy to be telling him what was happening.  He could see for himself.  He was a baseball fan, and I remember him taking me down to the Quad-Cities Angels games a few times.  I loved being out at the game with Grandpa.

Of course, one of my favourite memories of him was when I started mowing their yard.  He had finally reached the point where he couldn't do it anymore.  After I was done, he'd give me the $5 he felt he owed me and said "Now don't you be buying beer with this."  This was, of course, when $5 could actually buy you a six-pack.  I was in high school, so of course I wasn't buying beer with it.  Though when I was in college, I have to admit that I did consider that money to be laundered.  I didn't buy beer with it, but I did use it to replace the money that I did buy beer with.  Was that wrong?  Both of my grandparents were very anti-alcohol, though Grandma was probably aware that us college students and older were probably drinking at least a little bit.  Grandpa would often say how proud he was of his family and how none of us drank, did drugs, got divorced (this was before any divorces had happened) or anything like that.  I think us college students kind of looked at each other and hid smirks.  But I do like to think that that kind of upbringing, both from my parents as well as my grandparents, kept me from doing anything even remotely stupid with the drinking that I did do (well, most of the time...and you'll have to beg me for those stories).

After Grandpa died, Grandma was the only one left.  I loved all of my grandparents dearly, though in different ways obviously.  Perhaps it's because I was a full adult interacting with Grandma (Grandpa was still alive too, but he wasn't as active and his memory was going even more), but I've always felt closest to her.  I was a bratty teenager and early college student when my other Grandma died, and she had been ill for about a year or so before I went to college, so we never interacted on the same level.  But this one?  We bonded over a few things.

She had spent the last 10 years or so really taking care of Grandpa, and I think that took a toll on her.  I know she didn't get much of a chance to go out and do things.  After Grandpa died, I swear she lived more in those 9 months before she died as she did in the ten years before that, at least as an individual (not talking about her as being part of the rest of the family).  She even made it up to Chicago to see where both me and my brother were living, as well as her first great-granddaughter.  She seemed to really come alive at that point, and I think she was truly happy.  Of course, she was sad that Grandpa was no longer there, and I'm sure she got lonely at times, but she packed a lot of individual living in those 9 months.

The reason I say that I was closest to her is because, when I was home, we would go out to lunch sometimes and just sit and talk.  We'd talk about anything and everything.  We always went to a fast food place like McDonald's.  Partially because I was a college student and had no money (and I didn't want her to have to pay much if she insisted on buying), but mostly because we could just sit there and talk after we were done eating.  We never went at a busy time, so they didn't care how long we sat there.  I'd tell her about college life (though I did avoid any party tales) and we'd talk about books, music, movies, family, whatever occurred to us.  She was so tickled that I wanted to spend time with her, and I think it was a nice escape for her too.  She had everything layed out for Grandpa as far as medicines and food for lunch, but if she was at home she'd have to be taking care of him directly.  This gave her a bit of freedom, even if it was only for two hours or so.

I remember I took her to Driving Miss Daisy and a preview of some movie came on that was a little bit racy (or maybe there was a racy scene in this movie?  I don't remember). I commented on my surprise at her reaction to it, which was 180 degrees different than I had expected.  She just shook her head and, in her distinctive voice that I wish I had the words to get across, said "Everybody thinks I'm such a *prude*!"  And we were wrong to think that, of course.  She loved Sue Grafton novels, and while they're no S.J. Day books, they're not exactly Victorian.

Grandma was always into gadgets, and I often wonder what she would think of all this Internet and social media stuff if she were alive today.  The Internet was around before she died, of course, but it wasn't really coming into its own as a place where everybody was.  I think she'd love it.  She would throw herself into learning about it, using it, and having fun with it.  She'd be on Facebook, of course, but she might even be on Twitter (or at least read it), or do some other social networking as well.  Maybe this would all have come too fast and furious for her, but I think she would have felt the need to understand it and be a part of it, at least a little bit.

I often wonder what any of my grandparents would make of me, how I am now, or what I'm doing.  I know Mom follows this blog religiously, and I'm sure Grandma would too.  Sometimes, before I do something, I do think about what Grandma's opinion would be of it.  Not in a "moral compass" kind of way, but just kind of a curiosity.  Would she be impressed?  Think it was cool?  Shake her head and laugh?

Obviously, parents are the most important people in a child's upbringing, but grandparents are important too.  Some of our most cherished memories involve the grandparents in some way.  We joke about taking revenge against their kids by spoiling their grandkids rotten.  But it's usually said in love.  If you have a special grandparent, or two, or three, or even all four, given them an extra hug and a kiss next time you see them.  They deserve it.

This post is for all the grandparents out there who love and cherish their grandkids with all of their hearts.  You will always hold a special place in our hearts that will last long past the point where you are no longer with us.

Update #1: Thanks, Mom, for correcting me on the date Grandpa Roy died. I've now corrected the post.