grandparents

The Wooden Bowl

Backstory

This episode is not original. It was related by a storyteller; those folks who face their audience with nary a teleprompter in sight and narrate their tales. Wish I knew the name of the storyteller, to share with you.

The Wooden Bowl

The frail old man could no longer live alone. He moved in with his son and his family. But things got off to a rocky start.

The old man’s hands trembled and his eyesight was blurred. When the family ate dinner together, food fell off his silverware. He spilled his milk. He dropped plates.

The son’s wife was irritated with the mess. Finally, they decided to set a small table in the corner where Grandpa could sit alone. This would keep everyone else from being annoyed by him as they ate. To avoid broken dishes, food was served at the little table in a wooden bowl.

His 8-year-old grandson thought he saw tears in the old man’s eyes at mealtime, but he made no objection. One evening the parents noticed their son busily at work with some pieces of wood.

“What are you making?” the father asked. The boy responded, “I’m making bowls for you and Mama to have your food in when you live with me when I grow up.”

The parents were speechless as tears welled up in their eyes. That evening the man’s son went over to his father’s place at the little table and took his hand. He gently led him back to the family table.

For the remainder of his days, the old man ate every meal with his son’s family. And for some reason, it didn’t seem to matter anymore when a fork was dropped, a drink spilled, or a tablecloth soiled.

P.S. I found that this story has been attributed to Tolstoy and also the Brothers Grimm. A compendium of tales from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries lists this tale as being in circulation since 1535. It’s a pleasure to feature it here, yet again.

[Show #365]

Grandmas Raising Kids

Backstory

Think how contradictory things are these days. Seems to be no truth. Up is down and down is up. What if you were thrown into this mix and expected to navigate children through the fog. And besides that, throw in a global pandemic.

Grandmas Raising Kids

Here’s to the women who are mothering the second time around. Those grandmothers who are playing the role of a mom as well as grandmom. I’ll bet you know someone who is raising their grandchildren at a time when they expected to be able to relax and start to take things easy.

How I admire these women, and their husbands. Some of us joke that grandchildren are such fun because we can give them back. Not so, with those who have accepted the child rearing role.

Long forgotten nursery rhymes are being resurrected. Uninterrupted sleep is a thing of the past. Days end in fatigue, aches and pains. And yet, knowing what a difference you are making helps a lot. The smiles of those children as they grow and mature and prosper make it all worthwhile.

And so, on this Mother’s Day, a special word of thanks and love for grandmothers in their second round of mothering.

P.S.

There’s a national lifestyle magazine specifically for grandparents. They address the issues of encore parenting. GRAND magazine occasionally features stories from here at Consider This. Tune in for ideas, tips, discussions and stories of grandparenting. https://www.grandmagazine.com/

[Show #714]

Grandmotherly Visits

I remember riding on the train – backwards. It made me dizzy. My grandmother would pick me up in Brooklyn and we’d take the train to her home in Northeast Pennsylvania. She would keep me for a couple of weeks, or a month and then take me back to my parents.

I loved those visits.

I expected I’d be doing the same thing with my grand-kids when the time came. But that’s never happened. They’re far away. They’re busy. They have plans. I have plans. And somehow, the opportunity never presents itself.

My granddaughters have never poked through my jewelry box or worn my opera length pearls. They have not ransacked my hat boxes and posed in my old Easter bonnets or waddled about in my high heeled shoes.

I wonder what it would take for me to get one of them under my roof for a few weeks. Nothing short of kidnapping, I think.

Would they like it? Would they have wanted to hear the story of how an Asian craftsman took years to carve this ivory tusk? Would they serve tea in the same teacups from which their great grandparents sipped? Would they enjoy looking through old photos and learning about relatives they have never met?

Or would they sit in my parlor playing video games or texting friends at home. Would the visit show how much I love them? Or bore them to tears?

Guess I’ll never know.

[Show #446]