Wisdom of the Ages: Grandparents

Happy Summer! ~ I wrote this post last summer and I’m just now posting it. So I’m happy to report that my hydrangeas are having their best year ever despite the heat and last year’s questionable guidance from the garden store. Perhaps, I, myself, have become an old wise person figuring out my hydrangea woes without any reliable help. Wouldn’t that be something?! 

Anyway, this post isn’t really about hydrangeas or even being older. It’s about how much we matter to each other. I felt this most keenly from my grandparents. Maybe you feel it from a spouse or close friend, and ideally, we all feel it in our relationship with God. 

Still, I would like to acknowledge the unique role grandparents play in our lives. My own grandparents left an indelible mark on the parts of me that I like the best. And, as a mother who has watched her children grow up in the light of their own grandparents, I will be forever grateful for their love and influence. So for all you wonderful grandparents, pretend like I’m giving you some freshly cut hydrangeas from my yard. After all, it’s the thought that counts and I know your grandbabies think the world of you. I also know how right they are. ~ Love, Lara

I have always liked old people. They were nice to me. They knew stuff and never made me feel bad for all the things I didn’t know. Sometimes they would give me candy or money or tell stories that felt like a comparable treasure.

Grandparents were the ultimate old people. They were this magical mix of love and wisdom that assured me that the world was good and that I was too. I haven’t had a grandparent in decades.  The last time I did, the internet didn’t exist. If we wanted to know something we had to go to the library or ask an old person. I preferred the latter. This summer, my treasured hydrangeas that once boasted showy blooms and giant emerald leaves became stunted and deformed dappled by the powdery mildew of fungal disease and rust-colored spots.

I searched the internet and read until I was thoroughly confused by the array of diagnoses and conflicting remedies. For the sake of clarity, I went to the garden store fanning my sampling of diseased leaves like a bad hand of dealt cards similar to the one Kenny Rogers cautioned about in his song, The Gambler, “you got to know when to hold ‘em; know when to fold ‘em.” I told the sad story of disfigurement as if I were writing my own country song. All the while, the garden store employee hmmed and hawed making twisty faces with her mouth at all the right parts of my lamentation as if she understood both my plight and the solution that would cure it. When I finished, she pulled out her cell phone to do her own internet search.

I left dubious with a $20 fungicide and a deep longing for old people. I grew up when music television was the rage and neon clothes the norm so I hardly feel nostalgic for anything old-fashioned. But my longing isn’t so much for the good old days (whatever they were) but for grandparents. In these days of information overload, I miss the simplicity of the plain way that old people spoke that could tell you whatever you needed to know in less than a sentence. There was comfort in their knowing.

There are so many things that I miss about my grandparents that have nothing to do with fungal diseases.  I miss how just being with them didn’t make me question myself. The assurance of their unconditional love told me everything I needed to know. As someone who is likely considered old herself, I recognize that my grandparents probably didn’t have all of the answers. Maybe they had just as many questions as I do. But their presence assured me that the world wasn’t as scary or confusing as it seemed. Despite not knowing as much as the internet, they taught me the most important thing I could ever know – that I was loved.

As the world becomes more complicated, the simple things remain the most significant. Our relationships with one another matter most whether that’s with our children, grandchildren, spouse, friends, or family. We may likely never grasp the enormity of how much we matter to other people. And we matter not so much because of what we know but because we manage to love despite all of the things we don’t know. In our flaws; in our brokenness; in the many ways we fail to measure up or show up, there’s this knowing in the phenomenon of love that no computer in the world can begin to grasp. But we can. The value of that is the most important thing we can know. It may not be the kind of knowing I need to save my diseased hydrangeas but it’s certainly enough to save one another. I think maybe old people already knew this. What a world it would be if we all did.