An Introduction to Grandmom Stories

Generations. Love. Memories.

I remember three of my grandparents. My maternal grandmother died a few weeks before I was born, so my memories of her are second-hand, entrusted to me by my mother through stories to keep her alive through the magic of love. My mother’s father died when I was only a couple years old. But I remember him, a tall man who carried me on his shoulders through his house. I learned later, much later, that he remarried after my grandmother was gone. But that has no reality for me; it doesn’t live in my memory at all.

On the other hand, my father’s parents lived into my own adulthood and into the life of the next generation, and so they are still here with me. But they lived far away in a foreign land called Iowa, the land of endless corn fields. The distance was no match for the special connection from my grandmother’s heart to mine. Even now I feel its pull, its strength, and its power.

That love has leapt the generations, for now I am the grandmother. Despite the miles that separate us there exists a bond that I can recognize. Now I understand the shear force of love my grandmother sent me from far-away Iowa. It is alive in me, a special love like no other. A love that grows deeper as my own grandchildren grow older.

My grandmother was from a large family and was born prematurely. From the stories she told me I know that she was not supposed to live, but her parents put her in a box behind the wood-burning stove for its warmth. She survived her infancy and still lives in my memories.

Stories.

We live in the stories we share. I have been telling children the stories of my childhood for a long time, even before I had grandchildren. I’ll tell them again here, so that my grandchildren and other children might share them. With love. The power of the heart. For any generations that follow and want to hear them.