When I was young, before the age of 5. When life was simple. I spent a great deal of time with my maternal grandparents. They lived roughly 100 miles from my parent’s home. I would go to their home for months at a time. About 4 times a year, my grandparents and I would travel to my parents home. I would beg to go back with my grandparents to their home after each trip. Sometimes that wish was granted, sometimes not.
One absolute overwhelming trait of my maternal grandparents was their consistency. They were consistent in behaviors, reactions, responses, beliefs, love, and compassion. They were extremely faithful and loyal people. They were faithful and loyal to each other, their friends and to me. They were faithful and loyal when it was convenient and when it was not.
I always felt safe with them. Something about their mere presence made me know that everything would be okay. With them everything was predictably calm, steady, loving and unflappable. Both of my maternal grandparents were incredibly dependable people. Their moods and personalities were stable. Their actions and reactions were reasonable and proper. In all the years I knew and loved them, they never once flew off the handle or displayed an ill-chosen response or reaction to a situation or behavior of another. Likewise, I never observed them raise their voices or speak harsh or demeaning words about anyone.
My grandparents gave me many of my “first” experiences. They were the first people to love me. They were the first people I loved. They introduced me to God, Sunday school and church. They acquainted me with Disney, fairy tales, fishing, Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, Lawrence Welk, Hee Haw, music, letters, numbers, colors, jump rope, jacks, and gardening. But more than anything they taught me about human decency. They often cleaned up, generally during the holidays, the collateral damage of family disagreements and feuds. Countless times I saw them be kind to folks who were not kind to them.
Without fail, they showed a united front in every situation. They may have disagreed behind closed doors, but you would never know it. The loved purely without condition, they supported without descent, they sacrificed without complaint, and they encouraged without reservation.
I cannot over emphasize the vital role the time I spent with them played in who I am today. Their home was a polar opposite of the home of my parents. While my parents showed me what I did not want my life to be, my maternal grandparents set an example I longed to adopt. I did not know it then, but looking back I now clearly see their example was one of sacred authenticity. They were true to God, to each other and to themselves and concerned themselves very little with anything else. They each valued the happiness of the other more than their own.
It is their example I strive for in my marriage, my home and my relationships. I am sad to say I often fail miserably, but they taught me that even in failing I am loved. It is in that love that I find the strength to get up, dust myself off, accept responsibility and try again after each failure.
They have been gone for decades and I miss them more than I can say. Some days my heart still aches for the warmth, kindness and unique way they had of making me feel special. I often wonder what they would think of the path I have taken in adulthood. Would they be proud of me? What advice would they give me?
Fortunately, I have found if I sit very quiet and listen intently, I still can hear something my maternal grandmother said to me during our last conversation … “Sugar-foot, angel-baby … you are the most precious thing in the world to me … I love you and nothing will ever change that” … and it is enough. Enough.