There is more than one lesson I wish I had learned earlier in life. Perhaps the most important one is this: Spend time with the older people you love and that love you.
I didn’t appreciate the stories my grandparents told me at the time. I was just a youngster when I spent time with them, and when I was on my own I was too busy to visit them very much at all. My grandparents were really interesting people, but I barely remember their stories now, and I hate that. I wish I could tell my kids and grandkids those stories, but they are so faded.
My paternal grandfather was in the navy. He was a really smart guy, never went to college, but he had the mind of an engineer. During WWII, the navy decided to built barracks at a fort in California, near San Francisco. My grandfather was in charge of getting those built. He was in charge of everything, had complete control over the project. What was the name of the base? I can’t remember, but I know it was abandoned several years after WWII.
My paternal grandmother was beautiful. She had a Betty Boop figure, pure hourglass, and dark hair. She was the daughter of a stern mother and a sweet father. Her father’s father was Jewish, and when her father was a boy his father died, and his mother moved to her parent’s home, where her sons were forced to sleep in the barn, because they were Jewish. My grandmother was devoted to her parents, and her mother lived into her 90’s, with my grandmother’s help.
My maternal grandfather was also in WWII, but he was an infantryman and he saw action. He was among the troops that stormed the beaches of Normandy, and I am certain he saw horrors, but he never talked about the war to his children. He never had a successful career, but he worked very had his whole life, and he and my grandmother had 8 children. He had a problem with alcohol after he came back from the war. I don’t even know how he and my grandmother met.
My maternal grandmother was part Native American, but no one could ever remember if it was Cherokee or Sioux, and I never asked my grandmother when she was alive. I really wish I knew. She was a strong woman, but not one that showed much emotion. She wasn’t the kind of grandmother to smother you with hugs, but she certainly was the kind that baked delicious treats for us all the time. She was an excellent cook, baker and gardener and that is how she managed to feed all her children all those years. She had a stroke and lost her ability to speak, but my grandfather took care of her and even knew what she was trying to say and would interpret for us.
I could have learned so much more about my parents, too, but it is too late now.
So my advice to anyone with living grandparents is to not only talk to them about their lives, but write down what they tell you. Do the same with your parents, and ask them what they remember about their childhood and their parents. Stories are part of our heritage, and they are precious.
A Little Bit of Everything, With Love 