My Grandfather’s Legacy, An Eternal Bond
The legacy my grandfather left me is not measured in material goods, not even in old stopped watches or black and white photographs.
The real gift was the time shared, the slow walks dragging dry leaves from school to home, the taste of chocolate that he kept in his pocket or the hours in front of a sea in summer of which he knew a thousand stories. A thousand stories that rode between reality and his inventiveness.
Although the role of the grandfather is also to educate, his mission is not exactly the same as that of mothers and fathers. A grandfather, a grandmother, has already lived their moment of fatherhood, now, it is time to exercise a different role, and even to review one’s childhood.
They are trees of life where to shelter the new generations.
Grandpa, my pedestal and reservoir of wisdom
We never get to know if our grandparents asked to be. We grandchildren come into the world expecting to be loved, cared for and pushed into the world with confidence and security. Every child needs to establish strong bonds with those around them, and if parents are important, grandparents are no less important.
We carry a bit of his blood and somehow perpetuate his legacy with our generation, however, there are still many more aspects that nurture this bond and that goes beyond a common genetic code.
1. Grandparents can stop time
Did you know this ability present in most grandparents? When you came back from school and your grandfather came to pick you up, you knew that the afternoon would then dress in a more relaxed, more relaxed way. We also do not know if our grandparents had asked to “take back” with us their own childhood, but, somehow, they were almost doomed to do so.
They shared our games, our puzzles. Today they are already quite skilled with technologies even. They share laughter and confidences with their grandchildren, they establish moments with an intense emotional charge and different from the one they build with their parents.
Grandparents almost never sanction, they are a little more permissive, and also, they know how to listen. They have time, and even more so, they get “time to stop for their grandchildren.”
2. The role of the grandfather and the role of the grandmother
This fact is curious as well as true in most cases. According to various studies in gerontology and family psychology, the role played by grandparents is often different from that played by our grandmothers.
They are pure dedication, care and attention. They are the ones who care about our food, our well-being, they are the ones who, in a way, are more focused on reality and on a day-to-day basis in order to be useful. Grandparents, for their part, provide that knowledge of the past and a personal legacy to transmit to their grandchildren through a thousand stories, a thousand stories that children attend with their eyes awake and their hearts on fire.
3. They are allies in moments of crisis
Grandfather and grandmother are those huge trees where the whole family can be sheltered in moments of harmony and in times of storm. Adolescents, for example, tend to find some calm when having that bond with their grandparents, which in turn, mediates with their parents.
Grandparents are often criticized for giving in too much, never being able to give a refusal and being somewhat partisan towards grandchildren rather than children. Grandparents are in a moment of their life where they put conflicts aside and prioritize emotional value, and the closeness of their own above all things.
My grandfather was not only a storyteller, he was a man who could not bear the silence of an empty house or the noise of a room where arguments and fights floated. My grandfather was an ocean of calm that brought a serene breeze in moments of family crisis. No one ever knew how he did it, but thanks to him, I had a safe and happy childhood. Like many others.
And full, very full of personal legacies more valuable than the treasure of those pirates from their sea lion stories.
Images Courtesy: PJ Lynch Gallery
