Together for the holidays

Everyone has four biological grandparents.

Some are lucky enough to have all four alive and able to be an active presence in their lives. I am one of the luckiest people I know. My grandparents are all alive and in pretty good health for their ages, allowing me to have four beautiful relationships with four remarkable people. The best part is, I am aware of how lucky I am.

My family is from Michigan, but unfortunately our extended family lives elsewhere. For a girl who values the time she has with her grandparents the way I do, the distance is torture. That’s why I think the holiday season truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

There is no better excuse for families to come together and celebrate – and because my grandparents are getting older, traveling is becoming more difficult.

I’m excited to report that during the next two months my family has planned to spend quality time with my mother’s parents and my father’s parents. I can’t wait to be surrounded by their wisdom, humor and unconditional love.

Grandparents are filled with wisdom that we can only dream of acquiring. At our age, it’s impossible to know half as much as our grandparents know, but the only way to begin accumulating their wisdom is by listening to them.

Some of my earliest memories are of my mother’s parents telling me bedtime stories about my uncle who I never met because he died before I was born. I love listening to their memories. Watching them continue to celebrate his life has been inspirational, and I have so much respect for them and their ability to cope with the loss of their son.

My paternal grandparents both wrote memoirs about their lives. My grandfather’s book focuses primarily on his time spent in Europe as a soldier in World War II. My grandmother wrote about the events in her life from the time she was a child actress to the present, covering every heartbreak, struggle and blessing she’s experienced. 

Through reading these memoirs, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can not only learn about them, they can learn about life through the eyes of the people who made them who they are.

Each time I speak with my grandparents I learn about them, but I also learn about myself. I see little pieces of each of my grandparents in me, and it’s exciting to think that I am composed of the same DNA as four people I admire so much.

This holiday season, I intend to take full advantage of the greatest resource available to me – my grandparents. The most wonderful thing about grandparents is that they provide the same enormous amounts of love as our parents and recognize that there’s an urgency to share that love with us while we’re still lucky enough to have them in our lives. 

Maybe their age makes it harder for our generation to relate to them, but love is something universal that everyone craves. Our grandparents are more than happy to supply it, and we should all gladly accept.