Journal Jar Question #25

Grandparents...oh, I believe that I'm one of the luckiest people to be able to say that I knew all my grandparents, grew with them, learned from them and admired them for their strength, their wisdom and their love.

I was born during the Second World War....as a result my Dad was a Marine stationed far away from us...my Mom worked during the day to help with the cost of a family...that left me as a babe in the arms of a loving, kind Southern Grandmother and multi-talented Greek Chef Grandfather who both fawned over their first born grandchild.  I was the golden baby.

My Dad was seriously hurt during the war, developed complications that caused him to be hospitalized for almost two years....so the first formative years were mostly under the guidance of my Grandparents.

They lived in Norfolk, Virginia and we visited during the winter school break and I spent almost all my summers at their house..it became my second home away from home.
Even now, if I close my eyes I can feel myself on their covered front porch...sitting on their large swing listening to the rain hit the green & white awning that my Grandad had put up to shield the porch from rain....I can almost smell the rain. I can remember coming home from the pier with bushel crates full of Chesapeake Bay crabs and helping Grandpa clean them off for cooking. He taught me how to fish & crab & cook.  My husband thanks his memory when I make Greek Grape Leaves or any of the wonderful dishes that he showed me.   Memories can play tricks sometimes, but this is one that I cherish.

They taught me to be kind, by being kind...they taught me to be faithful...by being faithfull for more than fifty years, they taught me to stand my ground when I felt it was right and to trust my instincts.  They taught me that love was a moving, living, growing essence that had to be tended to or it could be lost. 

They teased each other, sometimes refused to speak to each other unless it was through one of us kids...it would be "Tell that man Nick that he is really in my kitchen too much!"  Nick of course would respond "Youtell Lee that I'm the cook in the family and she can wait till I move!" I guess you would consider it "fussing" at one another...but always with the undercurrent of love embedded in it.

I didn't find this out until after my Grandad passed but my little Grandmother, who never learned to drive, would get on a downtown city bus for an hour to take her to the Veteran's Hospital on the days that my Uncle could not take her.  My Grandad was in there for over a month...Lee never missed a day.  So much of our family did not live right there, so it was with heavy heart that I learned this....but my Grandmom said to me "Nick would of done the same for me."

She lived a good number of years without him but he was never far from her memory, as both of them are never far from mine.

I was lucky, I spent the first 42 years of my life knowing my Grandparents.   I believe that we can learn from our elders, I have always believed that...