Two photos of grandson Zach: Trying on a fireman's helmet at Newent's world-famous onion fair; about to score a try at a rugby game last weekend. Almost a decade has elapsed between the two.
Ten years ago I was Zach's grandpa (Big Grandpa), taking him to the bakery in St-Jean-de-la-Blacquerie and encouraging him to say Bonjour. Now I am wallpaper to his world as computers and playing sport - swimming, soccer, cricket, ski-ing and rugby (where he plays scrum-half) - have absorbed him.
This is as it should be. At Zach's present age I had absolutely no interest in adults other than they were random, inexplicable and a source of fairly mild punishment. I doubt I distinguished between my adult relations and, say, giraffes. Let them be. And to be frank, there is no attraction in my attempting to hang on to the periphery of Zach's newer being. Instead I look forward - possibly! - to the sort of relationship I have with my two other grandchildren, both much older than Zach. Ties based on spirited conversation. That's if I'm spared, as my Grannie (another old person) used to say.
Zach is doing me great service. One of the unpublicised aspects of getting old is a growing risk of becoming a bore. On the whole young people just aren't interested in those who are forever looking backwards. Nor should they be. The life ahead is infinity. Even worse, I might become sentimental, although that possibility is more likely to make me vomit than Zach.
Time passes as quicksilver. One may entrap memory and dwell on it privately. But if you’re tempted to recycle it for others, it may profit from a modern context. Moaning just doesn’t cut it. There’s a Latin tag… but I’m damned if I’ll use it.
Words of wisdom! And I agree. Staying engaged in what's happening currently and looking ahead is what can keep us young at heart .....
ReplyDeleteJoe(e): Welcome to Tone Deaf. You may find that blog-title odd given I took up up classical singing lessons at age eighty. I am not (I hope) tone deaf. I christened this blog - my second - impulsively when I was comparatively young, that's to say my early seventies. I've had good cause to regret the title other than that it's short. Now I'm stuck with it.
DeleteI agree about living in the present and taking a lively interest in the future. As a British citizen who voted Remain and who is now beset by Brexit I have no alternative. The present is ever-changing and quite gruesome, the future (which grandson Zach will grow into) is hard to contemplate. We should not look back all the time since this is likely to encourage nostalgia, a frequently false sense of indulgence which old people are prone to. Unfortunately past and present are two quite different things: we may only react to the present, the past being familiar is more amenable to analysis and to thought-out conclusions. The best solution is to use the past to inform the future. Showing we have learned history's lessons.
All very theoretical, I fear. In certain interviews which appear regularly in The Guardian the subject is asked "When were you happiest?" I think - but can't be sure - the answer should be: "Now!". If it isn't, we should then try and answer the second question: "Why?"
I do wish my grandchildren were interested in the stories I'd like to tell. I assume they will after I'm dead and gone. At least that's how it worked for me and my interest in the stories I wish my grandmother could tell me now.
ReplyDeleteColette: I know this is a subject close to your heart. Given your prolonged convalescence I assume it recurs regularly. One difference between grandparents and grandchildren is that adults are far more conscious of the passage of time. Children only become aware of it when they take on a mortgage. Strange how time is often interwoven with regret. But it's one reason (among many, alas) why kids will never be inclined to read Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (It's had other titles). Happily kids do respond to the opening words of L.P.Hartley's The Go-Beween: "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." And we, as adults, must learn to agree with them on that.
DeleteTry not to be too unhappy if kids don't presently welcome your stories. If the spark is latent they will. If it isn't we, as adults, must shoulder our responsibilities and feign optimism - perhaps they'll come up with something better. Other than a mortgage.
I finally decided I had to stop by and read your blog after so many years of reading your thoughtful and interesting comments that you write on Sabine's blog. It was your comment about death that brought me here today, how it happens twice was so moving and insightful. Sadly yes, that second death is one I hadn't considered. Our grandkids look at us like we'll be here forever with our old stories and memories.
ReplyDeleterobin andrea: Welcome. Another newcomer, although I have noticed your contributions to Sabine's blog. Such a delight when those concentric ripples in the blog-o-world leave a delightful sea-shell on the beach. For a word of necessary explanation see the first para of my response to Jo(e)
ReplyDeleteAs to twin-phase death, reflect on the wealthy rulers of history. Such grandiose memorials - the Pyramids, the avenue of huge arching swords leading to Baghdad - in an often vain attempt to avoid the second death of being forgotten. The paradox of artefacts that become more famous than the person who ordered them. We don't live forever, nor do the memories that surround us. For good reason. The remembered world would become too crowded. The dead enter their own autumn and winter, to be replaced by the youth of spring.
John Lodwick's novel, Somewhere a Voice is Calling, concerns a man who is constantly reminded - a sort of continuing existence - of his dead wife. But then no one reads Lodwick these days and that's a paradox of its own, he was slightly famous in the fifties.
I agree with your thoughts, RR. We are lucky in that our (adult) grandchildren always visit us - three with their own children. Thus we have a new brood of great grandkids to enjoy, Two of whom (girls of 6 and 8) recently were taken by their parents to see the German/England women's football at Wembley. It was their first time and my grandson wanted them to see what modern women can achieve. They returned and shared their enthusiasm and excitement with "Gramps and Nan".Having children early in marriage has been an investment for our old age!
ReplyDeleteI often wish, now, that I could question my own grandparents about their lives, but I grew away from them, naturally, as we all do as life takes over.
Avus: I was living and working in London when my mother phoned to say that my maternal grannie (aged 96) had died. My mother knew I was poverty-stricken (the marriage had just become three) and told me it "wasn't necessary" to attend the funeral in Bradford. I got on reasonably well with my grannie - I used to tease her which, my mother told me, secretly pleased her - but all I can say is I was greatly relieved. Even so I have wondered what my cousins, all resident in Bradford, thought about my absence.
DeleteMuch later in life, when writing had become second nature, I mildly regretted being incurious about my grannie's long life, but the passage of time rendered this as nonsense. I only became curious as an adult; as a child/teenager I wasn't even interested in my own history, let alone that of surrounding relations.
I am only just embarking on the grandparenting life - we currently are at the stage of looking at books together and lots of singing of songs - but I can look at various grandparenting role models in my family.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, children in the role as grandchildren also open up a new relationship between the parents. It was through my daughter and her relationship with her two sets of grandparents that I rediscovered my father's playful side (and his singing, dancing and football skills) and learnt to absolutely adore my Irish in-laws.
Sabine: There is a tendency for grandparents to spoil their grandchildren. For two reasons: they usually have more money than they had as parents, and - if the grandchild becomes a temporary burden (It can happen, I assure you.) - grandparents can always "hand the kids back to their parents".
ReplyDeleteGrandparents should, however, be more conscious of a grandchild's development than the parents can afford (time, money) to be. From about eight or nine many kids start discovering their own interests and these may may not mesh with the earlier years of being indulged. Grandparents should be careful not to resent this; as with Zach, it is natural that family bonds should slacken. After all, there is nothing more pathetic than a child who refuses to emerge from childhood.