BY LINDA EYRE grandparenting The Joys of Growing Older
A lthough I know that some of you readers may still be very young grandparents, I am here to say that getting older can be stunning. Like the first time you realize you can’t see telephone numbers that you could see the day before. Almost overnight, it seems, we need reading glasses. But that is just the beginning. We are terrified when we can’t remember names, even though we can usually remember the first letter. It’s actually breathtaking when we suddenly realize that we can’t sit cross-legged to play with our grandchildren anymore and it becomes embarrassing that it takes so long to stand all that way up from the floor. I have been in a delightfully stimulating book club for over twenty-five years. All have had the opportu- nity to raise several children so we have had fascinat- ing discussions and commiserations about the trib- ulations and triumphs of our children from the time they were born and have rejoiced with the milestones of our families. Together we have lived through trying teenagers, yearning young adults, hormone highs and lows, messy marriages, and the grand and the grueling parts of having grandchildren. About twelve of us show up consistently every month (until the pandemic hap- pened) to talk about a good book and our lives at the moment. Through the years we have served as a huge group of cheerleaders for each other—especially in our grandmothering.
“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.” Martha Washington
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37 GRANDP arenting
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