Old Folks Need Children

In my opinion older folks have a more positive outlook if they can spend some time around small children.  Grandparents often say that they enjoy their grandkids so much because they love the time they spend with them, but then their (the grandkids) parents take them home.  Small children, especially from the time they are babies until adolescence can be very entertaining.  Many of us remember Art Linkletter’s show and how funny were some of his interviews with children.  I am often amazed at things small children say and do, and wonder at what must be going on in those young minds.  To watch them change from about 9 months to age two is marvelous in that in such a short time their physical and mental skills develop, their awareness of themselves and the world around them develops, and they form their own personality.  Then they learn to talk and you never know what they will say next.  It is amusing to say the least.

I was married at an early age and my sons were born when I was intent upon establishing a career.  Then my first grandchild came along just after I turned 40, and his parents moved 1,000 miles away, so I didn’t get to see them except during holidays and brief vacations.  I envy grandparents who are older and have more time or live very close to their grandkids and get to spend more time with them. 

Now I have great grandchildren, but they also do not live close.  Because I divorced and married a younger wife we have grandchildren that are younger than school age, but they also live hundreds of miles away.

So, in the absence of nearby grandchildren, it is no wonder that we became very attached to the young couple starting a family who moved next door to us 4 years ago.  Krista was a new mom, and she and Andy were still in their twenties.  The day they moved in, we invited them and Andy’s parents, who were helping with the move, to share lunch with us on our back patio.  Later that day, Andy’s dad asked us to “watch out for our kids”. 

So, we watched little Eli grow his long blond hair and eyelashes, learn to walk, start playing with little cars and draw chalk figures in our shared driveway, start calling me “Mr. Don” and asking “where’s Marsher”, my wife Marcia.  I learned about “Lightening McQueen” from him and our grandson Nathan who is just 6 months older than Eli.  I got used to having Eli come down the driveway in the evening and find me on the front patio, and having him come up and tell me something about what he had done that day, or say “I’m thirsty”, his way of asking for juice which he knew I soon learned to keep in the fridge mostly just for him.  There was a while when he was about 3 that he liked to use the newspaper box hanging by our front door as a place to hide his cars.  We’d be sitting in the family room reading or watching TV and hear him out there opening and closing the lid.  Then he had “Woody” and again he and our Nathan acquainted me with “Toy Story”. 

I didn’t really realize how much having little Eli around meant to me until this morning.  His grandmother had taken he and his little brother Beckett (almost a year old) off to her house Sunday, but Andy and Krista were still here finishing packing for the move and cleaning out the house.  But this morning the house stood vacant, and as I drank my first cup of coffee and read the paper I began to realize that I wouldn’t be seeing Eli in the drive today.  Today, it finally hit both Marcia and me just how much we are going to miss Eli, Beckett, Krista and Andy, because they had become to us so much like family, like our own children and grandchildren whom we didn’t get to see as much. 

But there is another factor at play here too.  As we get older we finally have to come face to face with our own mortality.  The realization of our aging is better not dwelt upon.  If we have the opportunity to be around younger people, to keep seeing and hearing their ideas, it helps us feel younger too.  It gives us things to look forward to and think about.  It gives us the joy of seeing young life, growing, in awe of the learning of new things all around and always wondering what tomorrow will bring.   

I have often told Marcia that I would like a regular group of guys to have breakfast with every morning and talk with about the world’s current woes.  But if I did have a group of friends like that, all we would do is complain about how bad things are now as compared to the way they used to be.

No, what I’d really rather have is young Eli, or Nathan or Claire or Ben or Beckett, or some other little guy not yet in school but full of new experiences and new thoughts to come down the driveway and ask for “Marsher”; climb up in the chair beside me, and say, “I’m thirsty”.  “Do you have any Oreos”?

Comments

[Tim]

The main thing I remember about Art Linkletter was the chair that raised you into a standing position.

[Jeff Rasley]

Don, I don't yet have the joy of grandchildren, but my oldest son married last Fri., so I look forward to being a grandad in the not too distant future. My maternal grandmother and great grandmother were almost as important to my upbringing as my parents. They still serve as great role models for me.