1986-1990

Pap and Gram with Kendra (probably Christmas 1989)

My mother-in-law wrote a wonderful post reflecting on the joy she found spending three days with our kids last week. We were lucky to have them be there with our kids those days as I finished my year. Her post came at the same time that my family and I were engaging in a difficult task: cleaning out the apartment of my grandmother.

Gram's new home is a nursing home where she is receiving good care. She is a hospice patient there, but I'm learning that one can be in this state for quite some time. On the way back from moving furniture from her apartment, Matt (my brother), Stephen (my nephew), and I stopped to say hello.

Pap's retirement certificate. 

As we cleaned her apartment I came across some old records, including paperwork from my grandfather's retirement. He ended his career at Hammermill Paper in 1986. In 1990 he died from cancer. Those 2 1/2 years between his retirement and his passing were some of my favorite in my childhood.

Even before he retired, Pap was a big part of our lives, as was Gram. We visited their house often. They visited us often. But our visits to them were our favorites. Heck, Matt and I would cry when it was time to leave. But the even best version of our visits came when Matt and I (and then Kendra) visited Gram and Pap.

Without our parents.

And the best of those visits came between October 1986 and March 1990, the time between Pap's retirement and his passing. Now he had even more time for us. Now we didn't need to worry about waking him if he was sleeping for a nighttime shift at the paper mill. Further, we were at ages to really enjoy these times: In 1986 I was about the same age as Caroline is now, and Kendra was old enough to be more a part of the fun.

We would go into town and buy toys.

We would play with our imagination outside.

We would play with neighbors at the farm next door.

We would get into trouble.

Matt and I would carouse outside while Gram made us dinner, and Pap sat in the living room with his arm over Kendra's shoulder, enjoying cartoons.

Gram and Pap with my brother at Grange Fair. 

Gram reads to her four grandsons. I'll forgive Kendra for not making this photo . . . she wasn't born yet. 

Our visits to Gram's were still wonderful after Pap died (when I was 14). They became less frequent, though, as we got older and busier. And as Gram found it necessary to downsize. In the 42 years, though, that I've enjoyed a loving relationship with my grandmother, the 3 1/2 years that stretched between fall of 1986 and spring of 1990 represent something of a golden era.

I cannot count the ways Joe and Nancy's visit with my kids last week was different: it took place here, not there; it was in a town, not on the hillside of Nittany Valley's East End; they were building a geodesic dome in the basement rather than hay forts up at Herlochers' farm, etc.

But the one thing in common was the joyous moments had when grandparents are with grandkids.

And the parents are nowhere to be seen.