grandparents
Becoming a grandparent makes getting older something to look forward to - all the fun of parenting, without the hassle.
Once Upon a Time
It was 1996 and I had just turned 7. I was staying at my grandparents’ house in Florida. Eventually the time came for me to get out of the pool, into the shower and under the covers. Every night my grandmother would read me a story. These were not just any stories. She wrote her own tales of fancy and frenzy. I will never forget “Ermentrude.” This was a story about an elephant that fell into red paint and became a red colored elephant. The elephants name was Ermentrude. I loved that story along with whimsical stories about invisible friends, skyscraper long spaghetti, UFO’s and my favorite. It has been so many years, but I believe the story was called “The Glass Castle.” All of the characters were made of members of my family. I was a young princess who grew up in the castle. I remember my eyes although heavy with sleep would go wide as she read to me, and I clenched the blankets with excitement.
By Stephanie Joy5 years ago in Families
Unconventional Bedtime Stories
We love stories. Nothing is more important to understand about human nature, and while I’m not a sociologist, an anthropologist, or a psychologist, you don’t have to be a learned student of human nature to know this. You just have to be you, and talk to people, and listen to people. It becomes very clear, very quickly, that we love to tell stories. We tell stories to inform people, about our wants and needs, about our history. We tell stories to entertain and to educate. We tell stories because, in my opinion, we are simply wired to do so.
By Brian Gracey5 years ago in Families
The Story My Grandmother Will Never Tell...
...how she as a gifted artist and young girl of 18 met and fell in love with a charismatic painter who swept her off her feet and only began to play around when the first baby came and then another and she put up a brave front and did her best only to find another pregnancy arrive unexpectedly, and a message from her love that she would never see his face again if she brought that child into the house so she did what any mother would and packed up her suitcase and her two three year old children and roamed the streets looking for a flat which her mother helped her pay for while she gestated and finally birthed this child and then gave it up for adoption not just for the man who would never return to her or his children but cos she couldn’t feed it and she buried that grief in her heart and never spoke of it again, not even to her own children who longed to know the brother or sister that they never met.
By Delaney Jane5 years ago in Families
Who's That Trip-Trapping Over My Bridge?!?
My mother returned to work after a parental sabbatical when I was just under five years old. Her return to work as a secretary left me in the care of my maternal grandparents. My granddaddy was a magnificent man! He was fun and always spoiled me. Not in the traditional sense. My family isn't extremely wealthy, but time, love, and junky knickknacks I thought were treasures were abundant. Like in many cases though, he was the fun while my grandmother was the heavy. Grandmother (Yes, that's what we called her. My husband makes fun of it because it is too formal in the world of Nana, MiMi, and Gran-Gran, but it is what she wanted to be called.) was saddled more with the work side of childcare. She cooked, cleaned, and managed me while Granddaddy looked for ways to engage and have fun. Each day, he would inform me he was ready for his beauty nap. It made me laugh each time because the thought of him sleeping to maintain is old man looks was very humorous. Grandmother also found great importance in day sleeping. Even when I no longer needed a nap, she would go through great lengths each day to encourage my slumber. Sometimes she would rock me and hum. Other times she would place a sheet over the rough, itchy upholstery of the couch and tell me to lay down and watch Sesame Street hoping I would drift off if I would lay still enough. My favorite method was when she would sit by the bed and read to me.
By Melissa Wright5 years ago in Families
My Inspiration
My grandfather Robert Schilke was a collector. My grandfather was a collector of everything he found to be valuable to him but his favorite thing to collect was money. My grandfather made a life out of finding and trading coins and bills to find even more interesting and valuable pieces to add to his collections.
By Ethan Holloway5 years ago in Families
Family
There is a Museum in the city where I live in Montgomery AL called The National Memorial for Peace and Justice created by Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative or EJI. In that Museum on 2 different Plaques there is a name, Virgil Swanson, my great grandfather. He was lynched by an angry mob of terrorist white men in a little town called Greenville Georgia on August 25th 1913, for a crime he did not commit. This is one of the things that drives me and motivates me to be great and live my life to the fullest, because my great grandfather literally died for his legacy to live on.
By Rashid Ali Swanson5 years ago in Families
The beauty of embroidery
When I was eighteen my family decided to do a Secret Santa gift exchange for Christmas. I drew my grandmother’s name and immediately was brought back to the memory of that day we spent together. For many years, since I had been old enough to take up embroidery without supervision I had considered trying to take up the hobby again. I had mostly thought about trying to remember what she taught me, and probably have to learn some things myself from the internet, in order to embroider something to a standard decent enough that I could give it to her as a gift, perhaps for her birthday. To show that I had remembered all those years ago when she shared a meaningful part of her life with me. To tell her that I remembered and that I still cherished that memory all these years later. This gift exchange felt like the perfect opportunity to stop procrastinated my plan by saying I would do it next year or next holiday, and actually embroider again.
By Clara Jennings5 years ago in Families
