I can barely remember my maternal grandfather. I was 2 years old when he died, but I do have an image of him that was reinforced by a photograph and a lot of stories that were told. My mother was one of five girls born to their family. One died before I was born, but he four remaining sisters were very close and the network of cousins was a big part of my life. When the sisters were together there were more stories of Pop and he was always spoken of with love and respect. He was an attorney and very active in the Methodist church. He helped the church with legal transactions such as land purchases and assisted pastors with the preparation of their wills and other matters. He attended state Conference meetings many times and was also a delegate to national gatherings of Methodists. One of the treasures of which I am custodian is his bible. It is a fairly small leather-covered edition with its own special cedar box.

I knew my paternal grandfather better. He lived until I was in college and we always lived less than 100 miles away. During my childhood summers when I was able to go on fire patrol with my father we would often land in their town on our way home and hike down the hill to their house. There were many family gatherings at their home over the years. He was a farmer who then became a service station owner and operator. The service station he owned for the last years before retirement was in a tourist town at the base of the Cook City Highway and he always did a good business there. After he retired he got into making rag rungs. His basement was full of rags, all sorted by color and cut into strips which he braided into cords that were looped and sewn together into rugs. He made rugs of all sizes. There was a big pile of small rungs to wipe your feet on coming and going through a door and several large rugs - big enough for a living room. We all had rugs made by grandpa in our homes.

Our children, too, grew up with one grandfather. My father lived long enough to know that we were expecting a son, but died before he was born. My father-in-law, however, lived into our children’s adulthood and was an important person in their lives. He retired when our children were 2 and 4 and invested much of his retirement in helping others. He was an electrician during his working years and did a lot of repairs and re-wiring in our home. He was active at our church camp and after he retired served on the camp committee helping to keep the facility strong and well attended. He also volunteered to mow the church lawn and keep its sprinkler system operating properly, to run the sound system in the sanctuary, and served on a number of boards and committees. He was an active volunteer in several different organizations. But there was always time for his grandchildren - both to come to visit them in their home and to welcome them when we came to visit.

My life is filled with excellent examples of what it means to be a grandparent. I am aware that being a grandparent isn’t natural for all people and that some grandparents aren’t very present in the lives of their grandchildren, but those type of people weren’t present at the core of my life. I have known wonderful, loving, kind and active grandparents.

It seems like I have always known that I would enjoy being a grandpa. Even before we had children, we would talk about what happens when we grow old and I would talk of being a grandpa who would make and repair toys. There are some things that one looks forward to and somehow the image of myself as a grandfather was one of the images that was very attractive to me.

Now that I have two grandchildren I have to say that it is even better than I imagined. There are no words to describe the feeling of being rushed by our four-year-old as he runs to greet us when we arrive. There is so much intense joy in listening to him tell of his day and playing with him as he builds out of legos or plays with his cars. I love it when he asks me to read him a story and sing his special good night song.

When it comes to our granddaughter, I am completely smitten. She is a real charmer. She laughs when I make faces and do silly things. Yesterday she got the giggles from putting clean laundry on my head. She is the fastest crawler I’ve ever seen. She can zip from room to room about their house so fast that you have to pay attention to know where she has gone. She loves to play ball and seems joyful about almost every part of her life. When she sits up in her high chair to eat, she offers bits of her food to whoever is sitting next to her.

What is amazing to me about all of this is that it is the most natural thing in the world. I guess you don’t need special training or instructions to know how to be a grandparent - at least if you have grown up the way that I did. When we were parents we would sometimes have long discussions about what choices to make, how to solve problems, and what would be the best thing to do for our children. As grandparents we seem to just know our role. We can love and play with our grandchildren without restrictions. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the generosity of our son and daughter-in-law who welcome our visits and give us such complete access to our grandchildren.

As soon as we got the camper set up in the campground our grandson was planning a sleepover and we were allowed to host him the first night of our visit. And today we plan to go shopping for a new bicycle. As he says, “It’s going to be the best day ever!”

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