I was sent trapsing down memory lane this week after reading several of the flogs about grandparents. I hear my mom tell my niece and nephews that she loves them all the time. This wasn't a phrase I grew up hearing. This might be part of the reason that I have such a tough time getting those words to form on my lips and roll off my tongue. Regardless, I think it's sweet that she realized the importance and now expresses herself in such manner with the grandkids. I remember longing for that bond when I was kid...even now at times. I never knew either of my grandmothers. My dad's mom died when he was only a few months old. Someone once told me that I favored her. She had curly hair and a creative spark. My mother's mom died in 1987, a month after my father's death. I had only met her one time when I was 3, and I scarcely remember her at all. Last time I went to India, about 3 or 4 years ago, I re-met my mom's aunt...my great aunt. She made such a fuss about me and sniffed-kissed my cheeks like sweet amachis usually do. She doted on me and insisted we stay with her for a while. I liked being around her because of her loving nature...it was the closest moment I'd ever come to of having a real grandmother. I often think of her sitting in her house on the hill alone. I certainly hope her real grandchildren think of her often and appreciate her nearly as much as I did for those brief moments.

My grandfathers are another story. Although he is still alive , I hardly know my mother's father. I remember going to India when I was high school and asking apachen if he wanted to listen to my walkman. He obliged as he ate a cookie. Sweets were his favorite thing ever. Even now, although he rarely gets up from his bed and has withered into frail bones, barely holding up loose flesh...he happily ate the cookies my sister brought him when she visited him last month. My last trip to see him opened up a realm of understanding for me. I discovered the little intricacies of what makes my mother tick and why she is the way she is by watching Appachen and his ways. They are very much alike. My dad's dad, on the other hand, was my baby sitter when I was a kid. i have so many memories of him from my childhood. He never spoke English, however my sister, brother, and cousins always thought he secretly knew it but was a part of some covert plan set up by our parents, who used my gramps as a spy to listen and overhear our conversations and see if we were up to no good. One day, he came to pick me up from school...(we walked home together every afternoon) For no apparent reason some kid walked right up to me and started kickin the crap outta me. My gramps saved the day. He walked right up to the kid and pulled him off of me. And then we walked home in silence...well, other than me sniffling from time to time. I sorely miss my gramps...sadly, the last memory I have of him is watching him die before my eyes...surrounded by those he loved with words of praise on his lips until the very last moment. Oddly enough, he died the same year my father and grandmother died...on my father's birthday.

There's just something sweet about the love of a grandparent...I'm glad I was blessed enough to know that kind of love if even for a short while. I often wish that my niece and nephews...and possibly my own kid would have had the opportunity to know their grandfather....because i'm quite sure they woulda been the apple of his eye. ;)