After Raising Grandchildren What Do You Have To Say
An Invitation to Share Your Story
~~~~~~~~~~WHAT
WOULD YOUR STORY TELL?~~~~~~~~~~
AN
INVITATION
Executive Director Shirley Berens and Founder of the Grandparents Resource
Center says, “THE Time Raising Grandchildren is a journey of DISCOVERING
yourself.”
What do YOU believe is important now that you have raised your grandchildren?
I invite you to simply think about how it feels to be where you are today
and what you have gone through to get here. Ask yourself what is important
- what are the lessons learned that you would like to pass along to other
grandparents? Would you put this collective knowledge in the form of a
letter or a short story?
"LIFE IS A HANDFUL OF SHORT STORIES WAITING TO BE WRITTEN"
I wish I could claim this quote, but some anonymous person beat me
to it!
Now that I think about it, with my 60th birthday a month away, my life
does seem to resemble a bunch of short stories. But if I put them all
together - these mini novels that show me evolving, learning, and growing
more comfortable with my Real Self over the past decades - would they
make for a good read? In retrospect, would my stories help me figure out
why I am the way I am today at age 59 and counting? Would they help others
understand why I did what I did along the way when I was still blazing
a path toward my own maturity?
Raising grandchildren is not something we usually look forward to yet
how many times has it been said that I wouldn’t have chosen to do
anything else. When we were in our 20s or 30s parenting seemed so
hard we had to be so perfect now that we have moved forward what have
our parenting styles turned into how have they changed? How does
our past contribute to the betterment of parenting our grandchildren of
today? This is where those little novellas of ours might come into the
picture, don't you agree? Each one would account for life’s lessons
- the stuff we would like to “pass forward” to others who
are anticipating on raising their own grandchildren.
Considering the twists and turns that each story might tell us about
how we have evolved over our experience, what would you write about and
who would you want to benefit by them? Our grandchildren are now old enough
to give us credit for getting them to adulthood, so perhaps the first
two or three chapters of our accumulated wisdom might help other grandparents
to navigate through their own raising of their grandchildren a little
easier.
For most of us, our grandchildren are grown, so wouldn’t it be nice
to be able to let them know what our journey taught us, how we actually
made it - when we thought we had all the answers we found out there was
more to learn about ourselves, our family’s, our children and grandchildren.
Come to think of it, isn’t it funny if we looked back on our own
family history it seems to have repeated itself here in many ways?
But when it comes to dedications, I think our grandparents usually
deserve an entire book all to themselves. But it was my father who
taught me my family values where my grandmother taught me about my family
history. Both
my father and my grandmother (my father’s mother) were the ones
I always counted on for unconditional love. I didn’t have to make
good grades, look pretty, clean up my room (or myself), date the right
boy, or even remember their birthdays for them to still be there for me.
I would love to dedicate a chapter of my novel to them! In this final
chapter I could tell how far I’ve come since those early years when
they loved me unconditionally but I was too young to know the difference.
I could also explain how I have learned over the years about their
kind of giving AND receiving. Often learned the hard way, these lessons
remain with us forever - we learn from them, grow, and survive.
I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU! To whom would you write your novels
- dedicate your stories? What are your lessons learned? Who helped influence
your life or taught you about unconditional love and self-awareness?
