This past Sunday was Grandparents Day, as the first Sunday after Labor Day was so proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter back in 1978.

Why do we have such a holiday?  Clearly it was intended to honor grandparents and give them a  specific holiday to share love with their grandchildren.  Its purpose was also to recognize the wisdom older generations bring to families.

I am someone who never really had any grandparents: the only one alive when I was, lived with Parkinson’s in a facility that smelled badly when  I visited her there. She died when I was three.  I always envied my friends who were close to their grandparents.  

I wanted to know the wisdom of people who’d lived in the 19th century.  I wanted to have a place to  go to “complain” about my parents to their parents and I wanted to have more family to love and be loved by.  As an only child, I had no “lateral support” to go to and, without grandparents I also felt I lacked that geriatric  “generational” support.

When it came time for me to be a grandparent – albeit via my stepchildren – I cherished being in the room when one was born and sending them off to schools and life knowing they were loved.

I would really like to hear from you friends what it’s meant to you to be a grandchild and to have grandchildren of your own.