Grandparents

A post at the lovely blog My Messy, Thrilling Life made me reminisce about my own grandparents.

Grandparents are something else, huh. Precious, distant, funny, frustrating. Living 2000 miles away from mine, I would hope for kisses and warm hugs...to be to them that joy and spark in their eyes on those sporatic few times we could be together. But, though they were (and Grandma still is) good, I mostly got--and get--germanic stoicism and sizing-up. Ouch. Still hurts.

I know they loved me, but even as a child, I felt judgement more than I was a source of joy for them.

I am sure some of it is my perception. And there were times when they expressed humor and love (I recently found a humorous handwritten thin note--a valentine!--from my grandpa when I was about 4. Grandma jotted her "I love you!" too on it.) But I'll never forget my sweet grandpa's nose, scrunched up in disgust when he thought I wasn't looking, giving my chubby preadolescent frame a once over. I nearly died in shame. I had worked so hard to be cute for their arrival. My hair done just so, and such thought was given to my outfit.

And now that it's just grandma alive, on those few occasions I see her, I feel like I have to come with a list of accomplishments at the ready, to tic off the feats (fetes? should look up the definition) of my life, to measure up.

I don't have kids, but the sad thing is that I observe how my parents struggle with the same tendency to be judgemental of their grandchildren... and how they treat some of their grandchildren differently. While my parents LOVE, love, love their grandchildren, and I feel we (my siblings, their families, my parents, me) are closer than my parents' families were/are, some of my nieces and nephews most needing grace and love and warmth and for you to be interested in them, don't necessarily get it from my parents.

I try to talk to my parents about it--one parent in particular--but somehow the old ways remain, and in some way they think they are doing them a favor in offering criticism and lecture. Or that these interactions with them are better than nothing at all.

It simply breaks my heart.

I guess just a reminder to grandparents out there: You really can have a profound influence on the lives of your grandchildren! Be you near or far from them!