Grandparents

I've been thinking about my grandparents this year because I became a grandmother for the first time. This is my grandma Rose and grandpa John and I loved them dearly. They look to be in their 70s here in what is obviously a somewhat formal shot (no smiles), maybe taken on a Sunday morning on the front porch of their West Virginia farm.

I remember my grandma as always smiling around me, though, as I joined in with whatever she was doing. I watched her sew on the old treadle sewing machine that you made run by pedaling with your feet. I used to watch her string beans and peel apples, always trying for that one long curl of peeling. I'd climb up beside her in the kitchen and "help" her cut open a chicken and clean out the insides before she cooked it for Sunday dinner. Sometimes I'd follow her to the chicken coop and we'd steal eggs out from under nesting chickens.

My grandpa took me with him as he worked outside. I helped stomp down the hay in a haystack and dropped potato "eyes" in rows he had plowed. He'd let me sit up on the drivers' seat of the old wagon behind the horses and sometimes would hand the reins over to me and let me "drive." Once I was pouting about something and he did some Irish step dancing to cheer me up.

My grandparents had 25 grandchildren but each one felt he or she was special in their grandparents' eyes. I hope I can follow that example with my new little granddaughter.