One Nation, Under God

Grandfathers

My friend, Jane, said grandfathers are love and time to spend it. Baby Jenny didn’t say anything; she just gurgled and cooed as she nestled contentedly in her grandfather’s lap. My camera caught the moment in a photo that I captioned “Mutual Admiration Society”. Grandpa and Jenny smiling at each other We had it enlarged and framed; that photo expressed it all: love between a grandfather and his granddaughter.

We were so blessed that our children’s maternal grandparents lived practically next door to us. This beloved grandfather let our three six to eight-year old boys “help” him as he hand-sawed logs into firewood. Not that he couldn’t have handled this task by himself but being the grandpa that he was, he allowed that he could use their help. He also repaired their toys. Their daddy was too busy “bringing in the bacon” but grandpa had time on his hands. I can still picture one little boy on the opposite end of his Grandpa’s cross-cut saw, sawing with all the might the seven-year-old could muster.

At one time in particular, the boys had repeatedly asked their father to fix a broken runner on their sled; he evaded the issue. They finally gave up and took the sled to their grandpa. He brought it back with a firmly attached, rather crudely built new runner on it. They didn’t care how it looked, they were just happy to have it back and able to use it again.

Later that day, I heard son number two confiding to his playmate: “My dad can fix anything if it’s iron or steel, but he doesn’t know a blamed thing about wood.”

This dad eventually became a grandfather and still no expert in wood working, he found himself repairing trikes and bikes; trinkets and toys, as well as lending a listening ear to the children’s chatter and, their confidences.

One afternoon, he brought a five-year-old chum into the house “to see if we could scare up some cookies”. Eric had been “helping” haul gravel for our driveway and apparently needed a break. Later that evening, my husband explained, “About mid-afternoon Eric inquired, “Don’t you think it’s about time we go in and see if your wife will give us a little snack?”

Of course, they got their cookies. What grandma could resist the twinkle in this grandpa’s eyes or the confident expectancy in Eric’s? Not this grandma, that’s for sure.

 

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