Invisible Grandparenting: Leave a Legacy of Love Whether You Can Be There or Not by Hanson Pat

Author:Hanson, Pat [Hanson, Pat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Park Place Publications
Published: 2013-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

LEGACY OF LETTERS AND LIFE LESSONS

It was very di fficult to select letters for this book from the collection I’ve written. Even more difficult was sorting them into meaningful categories. When themes emerged, there was considerable overlap. Chronological order didn’t work. Many letters fit more than one category.

I found myself writing most of the letters to Annie, the granddaughter that is truly invisible to me, and fewer directed to Carter, who I now see and speak to occasionally. Many of the more recent letters I directed to both of them. Some specifically to be “Said but Never Sent” were directed to Suzie, the mother who is blocking me from seeing Annie. Others I wrote to “the Universe” spouting off my thoughts and feelings at the time.

As an academically trained writer, I realized early on that many of my letters were long, verbose, and often not age-appropriate. Therefore I developed a practice of paraphrasing and explaining “big words” not understandable to a 9- or 10-year-old. I even thought of rating some letters like in the movies. My intention, however, was merely that they be read someday. I suspect my grandchildren might be quite adult and able to receive and understand these if and when they discover this legacy in letters.

As I reviewed the letters I surprised myself when I became aware of hidden “Life Lessons” within messages on other subjects. Since my major goal in writing these letters was to leave a legacy of what I had learned for my grandchildren, I highlighted these LIFE LESSONS in the first edition.

What follows are categories for letters I wrote over the past five years. They are not all-inclusive. The first section continues to unravel the circumstances that led to my invisibility. These samples are merely suggestions of the types of things any grandparent might want their grandkids to know. They were inspired by daily events in my life, as well as questions I imagined my grandchildren might ask me at various ages and stages in their own lives. Some are based on the different roles that grandparents play in young people’s lives. As you peruse my legacy, may you be encouraged to devise your own.

My Invisibility Continued Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Not Really.

February 6, 2009

Dear Annie & Carter,

I am visiting old friends in Paradise where I used to live. Yup, Paradise is really the name of this small kind of redneck town in the hills above Chico, in California’s central valley.

Anyway my friends Bob and Annie met and married twenty years ago when they each had grown children. When you walk up the path through their garden to the house you see this sign:

Grand Kids Welcome

Cuddles and giggles

Cookies and treats

Days spent at grandma’s

Are always so sweet!

A wooden frame for the doorknocker on the front door has two cutesey balding bespectacled “old people” with curly wires for hair that reads Grandpa and Grandma’s House. Inside every nook and cranny of their tiny house there are many, many framed pictures of beautiful babies, young people and growing families in every room at Christmas, weddings, Halloween, etc.

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