Grandparents' Day

Grandma Jean and Ben last summer

Grandparents' Day has always struck me as one of those holidays Hallmark made up for the purpose of selling cards. But this Grandparents' Day stuck out to me because it falls on such a sad day. Instead of reflecting on the terrorist attacks of four years ago, I decided to think about grandparents.

Our relationships with our grandparents can be a chance to heal a family. Because we've skipped a generation, we avoid many of the destructive patterns parents and children fall into. Before Ben was born, my father-in-law closed one email poignantly by saying he was hoping to be a better grandparent than he was a parent. I love seeing my parents and parents-in-law with Ben because I can clearly see how happy this little boy has made them.

Relationships with grandparents are bittersweet, though; they are the first experience most of us have with aging and death. Grandpa Bob died of a heart attack when I was two. I was the only one of his ten grandchildren he met. He made me a lovely wooden doll house. A few years ago on Christmas Eve, my dad spoke of how much Grandpa Bob would have loved being around so many young people at Christmas. We have pictures of him dressed as Santa Claus.

Granddaddy Joe passed away last January at age 95. My mom remembers him as a stubborn, domineering man, but age softened him into a more open, curious person. I never knew him well because he lived in California, on the other coast. When I visited him two years ago, he kept manila folders for clippings about current events. I asked him questions about his childhood growing up on a ranch and took notes to try to keep his memories alive.

I spoke to Grandma Jean today. She had no idea it was Grandparents' Day, but she was happy to hear from me, and she caught me up on all the family gossip. In her eighties, she remains chipper and lives in a retirement community near my parents. Like her father before her, she has developed macular degeneration and has trouble seeing all but the most stark images. Last year, I tried to get her to talk about her feelings about going blind, but all she would say is, "It came on quickly."

Grandmother Dorothy, living with my aunt and uncle in California, is healthy physically but not mentally. When I visited two years ago, she didn't know me. She spoke of dancing with Liberace, of searching for gold in the hills. She thought she might be pregnant. We have a series of pictures she took when she was dating my grandfather. He asked how she spent her evenings, and she used the timer on her camera to take a series of shots: her drinking tea in the bubble bath, toweling off, brushing her hair, reading in bed. Now both the brash young woman and the man she wanted to impress are gone.

When you have a child, you see that the constellations of relationships aren't fixed; they shift with every generation. When Ben was born, he created four new grandparents. My mom jokes uneasily about whether her mother's craziness is hereditary. My dad doesn't talk about how his father died at just his age. Tom hopes they find a cure for Alzheimer's before we get old. I wonder how it would feel to lose touch with reality, or not to be able to read.

I thought writing about Grandparents' Day would be a relief from the sadness of September 11, but it's not. Life keeps moving and changing, even when we're not noticing. Someday, if this holiday is still around, I may get a card from a grandchild. Depending on how my genes and environment have interacted, I may not be able to read or understand that card. Relationships with grandparents show the young and the old reaching out to each other, moving backward and forward through time. There's beauty in that motion, but also a deep sadness.