Q: This is a message to all grandparents: It is not that hard to make a difference in your loved ones’ lives.
We just buried our grandfather a few weeks ago. Actually, he was my great grandfather but that really makes no difference.
The death was not particularly catastrophic. It was time, that is all.
He had led a pretty good life, seemed for the most part to always be in a buoyance of spirits and was just on the edge of needing a little more care than he was able to get at home.
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A care home was his next stop, but Grandpa was not the kind of a person who would have done well there. He liked to sit up late at night, snack away in front of the fridge when he desired and take his pills when and if he was in the mood.
I suspect that that would not have gone well if he was in a care facility. But that was not an issue, he died before talk of moving him into a home took hold.
Grandpa’s big thing was baking cookies. Every three or four weeks he would kick Grandma out of the kitchen and set himself up for an afternoon of baking. He had flour and peanut butter and eggs and vanilla and whatever else he needed to manufacture a couple of dozen cookies for all of us grandkids.
Then it was delivery time. This was no mean feat. In fact it was almost ritualistic. Grandpa would put a half dozen cookies into a little, brown paper bag, drive over to one of our houses where he tiptoed up to the front door and quietly dropped the bag into the mail box. Then he would scamper back to his car and get Grandma to call us and let us know that the Grinch Who Stole Christmas had just dropped off a treat for the kids.
Of course all of us knew what was going on, we knew when he brought us cookies and we knew who the Grinch was, but it was part of the ritual and it was a lot of fun to pretend what a surprise those cookies were.
For whatever else Grandpa might have done with his life, it was those cookies that made the difference. All of us will remember Grandpa’s cookies and all of us will quietly shed a tear of appreciation when we think of Grandpa and the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
As I said, it is not that hard. It is not what we do that makes the difference in our personal histories. It is the loving and caring and fun of it all that goes along with it.
I could not possibly eat a homemade cookie without remembering that it is indeed the epitome of what love is all about. Isn’t that really what Grandpa taught us?
A: Thank you for your letter. I do not think that I can add anything to it except to respect the message. It is not the gift that counts. It is the loving that goes along with it.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer.com.
