What’s your relationship like with your grandparents?
My grandma passed last weeek. I’ve been thinking about my relationship with her and my other grandparents. My family and I visit them on holidays and they were nice enough. But I don’t feel like I knew my grandma or know my other grandparents.
I think my family is weird maybe? Idk it’s the only one I know lol. We’d talk about tv and movies we’ve watched recently. What they watched. Tell the grandparents what was going on in our lives. Ask about what was going in grandma and grandpas life. Mostly get answers like “same old same old”, tales of doctor visits, or NCIS.
But like who are they as people? What were dreams when they were young? what adventures have they been on? what sparks joy in their life? What struggles have been through?
Like if I had to describe my grandmother I’d say she was a nice, pleasant lady who was mostly kind and liked cats, but not enough to get her own, just fed the neighbors cat. A description a stranger could give after meeting her talking for a bit maybe.
Looking back at my relationship with my grandparents, it all feels surface level. I never shared any of the hard shit I was dealing with, never really vulnerable around them. They were never vulnerable around me.
I don’t know many details of their life beyond career, maybe the places they’ve lived, pets they’ve owned.
Maybe that’s a reflection on my parents. We were never really vulnerable with each other about stuff, when someone was it was often mocked. My parents were not good parents a lot of the time. Who knows maybe that’s a result of their parents?
But umm yeah, Lemmy what’s your relationship like with your grandparents? Are you real close? Do you know them well, or more like a coworker you enjoy occasionally small talking with? Or rotten shitbags? I wish I knew my grandma better.
I would say I had both worlds. One set were nice and all that, but they had 6 kids so by Grandparent age they were probably tired out, LOL. But their life revolved around watching TV. So visiting was sort of a side thing because you were cutting into their shows so there was not a lot of depth. My other set of grandparents were great. They took us on random road trips exploring the country. Taught us how to play card games with betting for cash. Taught us dances from the old days. When my grandfather would sleep in his chair, his mouth would drop open. My grandmother made it a game to scrunch up small paper balls and try to toss them in his mouth. The connections they made with us as kids helped make for a open communication later in life. My grandmother and I used to write back and forth (we were separated by oceans later on) She was a good listener for when things in life were going a bit wrong.