Grandparents Day - Celebrating Some Very Special People

“Everyone needs to have access both to grandparents and grandchildren in order to be a full human being. ~Margaret Mead”

What would the world be without the warm and unconditional love of grandparents?

I was fortunate to have my grandfather in my life all the way through my teenage and early adult years. While we lived oceans apart and I did not get to see him as often as I wished I could have, his love for me in his letters was always evident and his support, unwavering.

When I left home and moved to Florida, I started volunteering at a Center here, teaching computers and basic internet skills to Seniors. I had some very interesting students, many of whom were in their late 80’s and who always had interesting stories to tell. I’m not sure if they learned as much from me as I learned from them!

One particular student, a feisty 85-year old New Yorker, began to hound me to go out with her for coffee. Every week I saw her she would bark “when are we going for coffee?!” She was persistent! I eventually did and from that first ‘date’ a wonderfully rich relationship blossomed.

Esta was not always in the best of moods, especially after she had to move out of her own apartment into an assisted living facility, but she was always ready with a quip or two. Whenever she knew my husband I were coming over, she would dress up to the nines, and make sure she had her signature flower in her hair. If I told her how amazing she looked she would say “a little powder and paint, makes a girl just what she ain’t!”

I once visited her wearing a necklace with a Chinese symbol on it that my girlfriend had given me in college. She asked me what it meant and I told her it stood for ‘wealth’. “Wealth? Bah!” she snapped. “Wealth is nothing!” Easy for you to say, I thought, my college debt always on my head. “Health! That’s what you should be wearing! Health!” I learned how true this was much later.

I remember asking both Esta and my grandfather what they would like when I visited and even though they never got to meet each other, their answer was always the same - “nothing.” It struck me eventually that what they yearned for the most was company and connection, not flowers or chocolate (which they both loved!). Whether it was me sitting next to my grandfather as he played Swing the Mood on the piano or singing a World War II ditty with Esta as she struggled to remember the words, time seemed to stop as we all got lost in the music.

Esta passed away peacefully in her sleep last year as did my grandfather a few months later…There are days when I’ll suddenly hear the strains of “Swing the Mood” or Fred Astaire singing “Heaven, I’m in heaven” and feel an ache somewhere. But then as I listen to the music, I always end up smiling, remembering something they each said and for that one moment, nothing else seems to matter.

Listen / Watch : Swing the Mood - Glenn Miller Orchestra