Meet the Grandies
I am surrounded by tribes of other people’s fantastic grandchildren. They are all the brightest ever, are uncannily intuitive and sensitive, take to musical instruments and technical gadgets like pros, are wonderful company and are unfailingly kind to their siblings.
But they are exhausting and the grandparents secretly love it when they and all their gorgeousness finally go home leaving a slightly wrecked house and an air of hush behind them. The unconditional love of grandparents is a beautiful thing.
The Stool offspring; Foot Stool, Bedroom Stool, Telephone Stool and a few other random siblings, sprung from the chair parents and are my gorgeous grandchildren. They are very rewarding to be around and it’s wonderful to see them grow and shine but it’s also wonderful when they go off to their forever home and I get to subside exhausted on to the couch with a wine.
Of course separation from the grandchildren and family is the source of so much angst and feelings of isolation for us down under. The idea of maybe never seeing them again is torture for so many older people who don’t feel as though they have time to wait around until things get better. The anxious press to get the Covid vaccine is prompted I think by this terrible FOMO and wanting to be ready should things change enough for us to get out of here and over there - anywhere!
These days I seem to be drawn to reflections and musings that are an effort to somehow make sense of a senseless world. There appear to be no rule books for how to be old(er) and certainly no rule books for how to make it make sense when you can’t see your family. As life narrows for many older people, the family becomes more important. All the siblings and cousins start to look more like each other and the nostalgia for those carefree childhood days, roaring round the garden with the cousins and whacking things with sticks, takes on the air of myth. Now the memory of summer after summer- always the same - and the long repetitive days of the neighbourhood and the family, seems dreamlike. We know now that the uncomplicated life where you knew what was going to happen next is not as boring as we thought.
For so many families this may never be possible. The restrictions caused by Covid and it’s successors and derivations may mean separations and changes to the way families live that cannot be changed or mitigated and for “elderly” people like me ( I can’t believe I actually wrote that) there is not time to wait and see.
The babies are walking, the babies are talking, the children are growing and they are over there – not here. Very very hard. But of course, my babies are a lot less risky although I hope Footstool does not grow up to be Bar Stool and Bedroom Stool recognizes his limitations and responsibilities!!. Haha !! Lxx
