GRANDparenting
Savour, Don’t Save A
Jacqui Graham has six grown kids and eight delightful grandkids. If she had known how much fun grandkids would be, she would have had them first!
12 GRAND
uthor Erma Bombeck wrote humorous and insightful essays about family life. One has particular meaning for me. In it, looking back on her life, she recalls with regret a pretty candle, never lit, that melted in storage, and a set of china carefully packed away. “If I could live my life over again,” she says, “I would have used those pretty dishes—and not only on special occasions but every day.” My mother was a proponent of the “save rather than savour” approach to life. When she passed away she left behind a sideboard full of gold-rimmed china dishes that had never been used, silver cutlery that never graced a table, and delicate lace tablecloths that never replaced the worn, torn, Scotch-taped dime-store plastic table cover. From closets and cupboards and shelves my dad and I unearthed boxes of gifts bought but never sent; piles of books unread; bins of fabric and unopened patterns she meant to sew for the grandkids; cookbooks with pristine pages.
We found a shoebox containing several dozen “happy birthday” cards she purchased over the years to send to her 11 grandchildren. Sadly, they never made it to the mailbox. Nor did she ever “get around” to phoning the kids. One day a young son asked me “Why does Grandma hate us?” Shocked, I said “Grandma doesn’t hate you, sweetheart, she loves you very much.” “Then why doesn’t she ever call or visit us?” he replied. My heart ached as I explained that Grandma lived far away, was very busy, and was sure to call soon. How could I explain to him that Grandma was just bogged down in a morass of inertia? My mother’s life was an endless bucket list of things she didn’t get around to: vacations to exotic locales planned but never realized; art classes embarked upon but abandoned; family genealogy questioned but never researched; and - saddest of all - a cobweb-draped motorcycle in the garage. Her past was littered with plans aborted, opportunities missed, dreams
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