Grandparents Day Blog: "Fortunate"

Picture of Sheri with her grandparents on her wedding day,
December 26, 1999.

I was a very fortunate kid.  I grew up just a short drive away from all four of my grandparents (and even three of my great-grandparents).  My parents and my grandparents made sure I was able to spend plenty of time with them.  In retrospect, I think I also demanded to spend a lot of time with them!  When given this assignment, I had a hard time pinpointing specific memories to write about; mainly since my grandparents play such integral parts in all my memories.

I remember countless sleepovers with both sets of grandparents.  At one house, I slept between my grandparents in their bed, where my grandfather would sing songs and tell spooky stories.  At the others’ house, I remember the impromptu sleepovers where I would get to wear one of my grandmother’s nightgowns and my grandfather would cook pancakes in the morning.  Whether swimming in their pool with my aunts and cousins; snapping beans in the basement; hiding in the dog house with the dogs; sledding down the massive hill in their backyard; spending weeks at their house during the summer and then begging my parents to let me stay longer (I remember a lot of begging); working for my grandfather during high school and college; or many, many more wonderful times; my grandparents always made me feel very special and very loved.

I am also a very fortunate adult.  I still live just a short drive away from all four of my grandparents.  Although I don’t get to see them as often as I like, they remain incredible grandparents to me and incredible great-grandparents to my two children.   Things really haven’t changed, they are still helping me to create wonderful memories, and they still make me feel very special and very loved.

Written by: Sheri Steinig