The Last Grandparent

Lucky was how I considered myself.  Lucky to have never broken a bone.  Lucky to have never been stung by a bee or wasp.  Lucky that all four grandparents lived through my college years.  These were the simple - if not at times childish - metrics by which I measured my fortune, my health, my future.

Of course, time passes and bones break.  Insects chase the tender flesh of others, but death rattles the door knob and one by one three grandparents pass followed now by the fourth.  If my parents follow in my paternal grandparent's footsteps there will be no nursing homes to visit, no tearful goodbye trips to arrange and no last ditch efforts to capture the genealogical history for the next 25 years (knock on wood). 

Funerals bring obvious sadness but they bring joy too.  They are impromptu family reunions for those who left the farm years ago.  In central Illinois my family roots are grounded in the soil of corn fields and I smile hearing the story of how Dorothy drove a horse-drawn carriage to school each day.  We all smile through tears to hear once more how a migrant farm hand from Sweden watched her drive by, telling his friends how he was "going to marry that girl one day."  Married for 72 years, eight years have passed since his own death.  Is he waiting for her with open arms on the other side? 

We know these stories like the back of our hands, but how well do any of us know these near-Centenarians?  

The wind howls. Temperatures drop to the teens outside the Hampton Inn on 51 and I ask my parents whether any of my grandparents were happy.  Could one or all of them look back on their lives and conclude that they lived their lives without regret?  What lessons do we take from their lives?  Can we apply them to our own?

In my mind's eye I see my father's parents walking across the threshold of our Topeka trailer.  The morning sun hangs behind them and light poors in as they greet my sister and me with cheerful hugs and kisses.  Grandpa speaks with that charming Swedish accent, mispronouncing his G's and J's.  I know at five that these joyful grandparents are different from the ones two states over. 

Through the years the differences remain.  One set grows melancholy and gives up by 75 while the other lives independently to 97.  The latter pair isn't perfect.  Dad's history of his life (and theirs) is strung with myriad threads of pain but funerals aren't a time for rehashing the could haves, should haves or would haves.  In the end my mom and dad agree on this:  my paternal grandparents never had much money, yet they lived lives rich in experiences, friendships and family.  Mom says, "I never once heard them complain that they didn't have something.  They never sat around wishing they had 'more'."

And her parents?

What mattered most to my maternal grandparents was working hard to make sure there was money left for the kids.  They had to make sure their bills were paid.  They spent their lives working and paying bills, working and saving, working and wishing for more. 

My paternal grandparents worked into their 80's.  They worked for the joys of working and having purpose.  Their final months and years were bitter sweet.  Both were more than ready to go, but it is the view of my mom and dad that Bertel and Dorothy could look back on their lives and conclude only one thing:  that they lived happy lives without regret.

I reflect on Grandma's Korean minister speaking at her funeral.  He butchers the English language and while I anticipate cousin Phillip's impersonation later at dinner I am struck by the fact that this man was more than some clown pulled in at the last minute from the nearest protestant church. 

He recalls a recent visit and how at 99 she grabbed his hand, berating him for an attempt to cut their visit short without hymns.  "You're not going to leave without singing are you?" she asked.  She surprised him further remembering every note, every word, every verse. 

Will I be like this at 99?  Will I grab the hands of those nearby to recount with clear conviction the songs of my youth?  Will I stand at the end of my days and reflect that I gave it my all with a joyful heart?  Or will I lament over how I could have made different choices, should have pursued the really bold dreams and would have loved differently had I been confident enough to do so? 

At age five I knew that if I could choose I would choose to model my life after my paternal grandparents.  At 40 I feel off track as I consider my craving for more.  Yes, times are different.  Yes, TV, movies and fast food supplant square dancing, sewing clubs and potluck dinners.  The more our society changes the more our desires grow; but the more our world matures the more our conscious mind evolves too, right?

Maybe.  My grandparents with their Swedish connections and simple lives were enlightened without knowing the meaning of the word.  They were masters of the now.  My maternal grandparents?  Puppets of the past and pessimists of the future. 

The last grandparent crosses to the other side and I grow silent as I consider whose example to model my own life upon.  It seems a given to choose hers and my immigrant grandfather's, but the genetic pull of more is strong.  The habit of complaining even stronger.

My frustrations over relationship and money boil over and while there is a certain inevitability regarding my longterm happiness, I fret over the short-term management of it all.