Sometimes it isn’t easy to be a grandpa. We love our grandkids, but we also can get ourselves into difficult situations.

And, in so doing, we can learn a lot about ourselves, as I did in my story . . .

A Holiday To Remember: A True Story

“Thanksgiving 2012”

     After a long drive home from Southern California, where Barbara and I celebrated Thanksgiving with my sister Rita’s family and my daughter Stacey, her husband Brent, and my three “grandboys,” I sat on our plush leather living room couch and reflected on our visit. I got to spend plenty of quality time with each of my grandkids. The experiences expanded my view of them, put me in my place, damaged my body, and tugged at my heartstrings.

     Now Drew, the seven-year-old, couldn’t wait to see me so we could draw together. Within minutes after I arrived at my niece Wendy’s home on Thanksgiving Day, he raced toward me yelling, “Grandpa! Grandpa! Come draw with me.”

     “Okay,” I replied.

     He led me out to my daughter’s motor home, where he pulled out his artist’s drawing tablet and placed it between us on the small kitchen table. Pointing to the open tablet he said, “I’ll draw on this page and you draw on that one.”

     Thinking this might not be the best way to go, I responded, “Why don’t we draw together on the same page?”

     He took a moment to reflect on my proposal and stated, “All right. Let’s draw a woman.” He drew a circle for the head. Then said, “We’ll start with her hair.”

     We each began to draw on opposite sides of the head. Before long he stared at my side and perused it with a critic’s eye.

     “What are you looking at?” I asked.

     “That’s not the way it should be done,” he sighed. “This is not working for me. I’m finished here.” He got up and went out the motor home door leaving me sitting by myself with a deflated ego and wondering what I did wrong.

     While Drew put me in my place, Max, my three-year-old grandson, did a number on my body—probably more my fault than his. Following a wonderful turkey dinner, he approached me, with balloon in hand, and blurted, “Grandpa, let’s play catch.”

     After several minutes of tossing the balloon between us, I became bored and suggested to him that we hit the balloon in the air to one another without letting it drop. To my surprise he was diving all over my niece’s living room slapping the balloon back to me with amazing accuracy and skill. Trying to keep up with him, I twisted and turned and twisted again until the pain in my lower back became excruciating and I felt awful. I grimaced and asked, “Max, do you want dessert?”

      He looked at me and screamed, “Yes!”

     “Thank God,” I muttered.

     The next day, my daughter, niece, and their families went to Six Flags Magic Mountain. We wouldn’t see them until we met after dinner at El Burrito.

     As we entered the restaurant, my eldest grandson, Riley, age nine, approached and asked me to write poetry with him. This request surprised me, as we’d never done this before.

     We sat down at a table. He placed a pad in front of us and gave me a bewildered look.

     “You don’t know how to start, do you?”

     “No,” he replied.

     “Let’s try something. Write the first letter of your first name on the top line of the page, then put the second letter on the next line, and the third on the next, and so on.” He followed my instructions with great precision.

     “Now what?” he asked.

     “Well, what would you like to write about that begins with the letter R?”

     “Richard,” he replied.

     “Okay, now say something about Richard.”

     He wrote, “Richard is a very nice man.” Then he stopped and looked at me with a sad expression on his face—like he’d done something wrong.

     “What’s the matter, Riley?” I asked.

     “Is this making you feel bad?” he whimpered.

     “Is what making me feel bad?”

     “Writing about my other grandfather and not you?”

     “Oh, Riley, that’s so thoughtful of you to ask,” I gushed. “No, Richard is a wonderful man and it’s great you want to write about him.”

     Later in the evening as I lay in my own bed, which felt so good after being away for five days, I muttered, “What a fantastic trip.” I closed my eyes and fell into a peaceful sleep.

Copyright © 2014 Alan Lowe. All rights reserved.