"Love at Home"

I grew up with my grandparents living next door which was both ideal and burdensome.  It made for an extra set of loving and protective parents, but it also added an extra regimen of rules and authority.  Instead of having grandparents that spoiled us and protected us from irrational parenting techniques (which is what I plan to do with my own grandchildren), our grandparents helped parent, discipline, and shelter us. If the parents were gone, the grandparents were sure to step in to ensure our chores were complete (to satisfaction), we were behaving properly, and that we treated each other well. They even added some of their own expectations: grandma always thought it would be nice if we did a few "extra" jobs to surprise our overworked mother, and grandpa always needed someone to go the farm and open gates and turkey feeders.

While we resented them at times, we also forged a bond, a bond so strong that we felt about our grandparents the way we did about our parents: we loved them, we feared them, but most importantly we knew them.  I knew that my grandpa could read, watch television, and sleep simultaneously.  I didn't believe it was actually possible, so I would frequently test him: inevitably, he could answer any question I asked about the television program always on in the background even though I intentionally centered my questions on information relayed at the exact moments I heard him snore, and somehow the books he read with his eyes closed were finished regularly.  I knew where grandma hid her wintergreen lozenges, her Tab (which she denied drinking), and that she took care of anyone in the community who was taken ill or suffering misfortune.

I also knew who to call when something turned up missing. Grandma was a rescuer who had a unique ability to find anything in our house.  When something was lost--a school book, a homework assignment, a new blouse, a shoe--we called upon her and she would rush over and produce the lost item.  

As we got older, we tried to assert our independence and insist we didn't need grandma or grandpa babysitting us when our parents were away. However, I'm uncertain if we actually made it through an evening alone without one of us calling for help--usually one of the younger kids complaining that the older kids were being mean or bossy (which is just not true). Generally, we older children were convinced the accusations were made up just to acquire grandma's attention. Whatever the reason, grandma would hustle over and rather than scolding, or taking sides, or separating us from each other, she would sing. As she entered the front door, she would erupt in song: "there is beauty all around, when there's love at home. There is joy in every sound, when there's love at home." Every. Single. Time.

Annoyed, we would roll our eyes, or glare at the person who had made the phone call, or immediately begin to defend ourselves. She would not take the bait. Instead, she would smile and continue in song: "Love at home.  Love at home." While singing, she would begin doing the dishes or the laundry or any number of the neglected chores in our full and busy home; generally, we ended up helping her, both out of guilt and to quiet her down. She was a master.

Grandma has been gone a long time, but I still hear her singing that song whenever I feel angry or frustrated with one of my own kids. I may in fact have sung it out loud a time or two when they argued or pulled faces at each other or expressed annoyance with life at home.

I also hear that song in the back of my head when I think about my childhood, my happy memories, my siblings, my parents, my grandparents, and our home.  Strangely, though, all these years later I can't hear that song without feeling the urge (or a push perhaps) to dust, or wash dishes, or tidy a room.

Grandma--singing to the infant version of me

My date to the daddy-daughter date (my sister took my dad)

Written April, 7, 2015