Family Relationships

Alison has a picture book. It is made up of pictures of her with her grandma, grandpa, uncle, great-grandma and great-grandpa. Alison’s great-grandpa thinks she is the greatest thing since sliced bread. There are several possible reasons for this. One is that she’s a girl. My mom is his only daughter, I am his only granddaughter, and Alison is his only great-granddaughter (so far). Another reason could be the fact that she has defied all odds and is our little miracle child. The last reason is probably closest to the truth. He gets to see Alison a lot. Maybe not as much as he saw me when I was growing up, but as often as he can given the fact that we live 300 miles away. In the last year, we’ve visited about 12 times. Why is that such a big deal? You see, Alison is one of three great grandchildren. My cousin has two sons, one who just turned 3 and the other who will be 1 in January. My grandparents have seen the oldest 3 times, maybe 4. They have seen the youngest once. They live approximately 5 minutes away from my grandparents.

My grandparents are 86 this year. They are not in the best of health, but they’re doing all right for now. My grandma makes it rather unpleasant to go and visit them, and she doesn’t exactly make it pleasant when they come to my parents’ house. Despite this, I make sure that they see Alison every time we are in town. Because I live so far away there’s not much else I can do to help out, so that’s my “job.” My mom has said she doesn’t know how I can stand it. To be honest, if I didn’t have to focus so much of my attention on keeping Alison out of everything, I probably wouldn’t stand it as well as I do. While I know that Alison probably won’t remember visiting with her great-grandparents until she gets older (and I’m hopeful she’ll have that oppurtunity), I still think it’s important to visit as regularly as we can. I know that when the time comes, we will benefit because of it. She already has Great-Gramp’s sterling silver baby spoon, which I thought would (should?) have been given to my cousin’s son, since he will be the one carrying on the family name. But that’s not why we go. I know they love to see her.

Alison has been a little afraid of seeing Great-Gramp these last few times. I wonder if it’s just a stage or if it’s because she can “sense” he hasn’t been well? In the event that it’s just a stage, Alison has a picture book. It is made up of pictures of her with her grandma, grandpa, uncle, great-grandma and great-grandpa.