There were no answers.
***
A man in his eighties wrote that he had a couple of dozen grandchildren
and great-grandchildren scattered around the world. Not one had written
to him or telephoned, either on their own or in response to his letters and
gifts. He was a widower, lived alone, and was the only remaining
grandparent. He wanted his grandchildren to know that he was still
alive. He had much to offer them, he said, about the family's history and
traditions.
'Should I just give up?' he asked.
I suggested that he, as the only living grandparent, persevere and to not
accept defeat. Whatever the past might have been, his advanced years
called for him to be nonjudgmental, empathic, and healing. I suggested
that his grandchildren have or will have families of their own and, in time,
will also be grandparents. As elders, they will reflect on their lives and,
with a perspective vastly different from their youth and middle years,
recall that Grandpa, in his advanced years, had tried to reach out to them
as a grandparent in deed as well as in name.
In remembering, they would better understand their own roles as
grandparents and their needs as elderly.
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