The birth of a grandchild is a magical thing. It takes you back in time as you hold a tiny bundle with a familiar face. You fall in love all over again, just like you did with your own children. As you watch them grow, memories come back of your child when they were little. It’s like getting another chance to love on them all over again. To go back to the days before all the teenage angst, before all the disagreements and hard lessons. Back to the innocence of early childhood when you could just scoop them up and hug and kiss away all the hurts and boo boo’s of life. When you could make it “all better.”
To see your grandbaby smile at you is a million dollar feeling. Like a reward for all your hard work of raising your own kids. When you hear that first little “Mom Mom” come out of their mouth, it’s an amazing feeling of knowing you play an important role in their life. You get to bring them joy, fun and wisdom without all the pressures of parenthood. You get to love your child more by loving on their child and by helping out because you remember how hard it could be at times. If your lucky, you get to help care for your grandchildren, while mom and dad get a break. A bond with a grandchild is a special thing. When they run to you and call out your name with their arms open wide, it’s one of the best feelings in the world!
If you are blessed enough to be involved in their lives, you get to share in their accomplishments as you watch them grow. Like when they take their first steps, grow taller, or color pictures for you. You can enjoy watching them play sports and watch their personalities blossom into the person God created them to be. A grandparent can be a good influence on the child. Can you remember times with your own grandparent? Hopefully you have some good memories of being with a grandparent. I have pleasant memories of my grandmother. I remember my grandmother wrapping a towel around me after I came out of swimming in the creek in front of her cabin and she would rub my arms briskly to warm me up. I also remember she had a candy dish in her house that she would let me pick one piece of candy from when I went to visit her. I fondly remember her bringing me to Woolworth’s 5 & 10 to have lunch at the counter. That was a special treat for me, being that my parents couldn’t afford to bring their seven children out to eat very often. I pray that I am making wonderful memories for my grandchildren.
I have six grandchildren now and they are all special in their own way, just like my children are. Most of them live close enough that I can visit whenever I want to. Except for my first grandchild, she lives four states away and that makes me sad because she is a part of my son who has gone to heaven. She looks like him and she is part of his flesh and blood, so I wish I could see her more often, not less. I’ve tried to stay in touch and stay close but unfortunately the distance makes that hard to do. She will always be very special to me. I hope some day she realizes this.
My father is ninety-four years old and has twenty-two grandchildren and twenty-eight great grandchildren. He loves them all! My youngest grandchild was a birthday gift to me from God. Yes, she was born on my birthday! I couldn’t believe God blessed me again in such an incredible way! Each one is a gift but now I have a birthday buddy and she has my blue eyes! All seven of my children have brown eyes, and four out of six grandchildren have brown eyes also. But my first and youngest grandchildren have blue eyes like me. This was exciting to me because I didn’t think I would have any grandchildren with blue eyes, since brown is a dominant color. But no matter what color eyes they have, grandchildren are such a blessing! 🙂
