I think I finally turned the corner last week when my daughter and family came for a visit. It’s taken a long time, but I am now officially just a Grandpa, nothing more or less.
Maybe it’s partly about letting go of all other pretentious aspirations. Maybe, the recognition that I have no career left. The “friends” I knew from 30+ years in business are long gone. What remains is my family. The fresh, young and renewing part of my life is in my kids and grand kids.
Tire Swing
What a joyous time we had,
- Wrestling on the living room floor,
- Piling all of us onto our king sized bed,
- Enjoying the new tire swing, dubbed the “grandpa swing”
- Sharing the kid’s beaming smiles from the sense of power and accomplishment each one got doing some real work with the skid-steer, moving and smoothing dirt and digging up stumps.
Moving the Earth
- Its fun and so easy to impress little ones with little things like showing off the bees without a bee suit, knowing that I’m fairly safe from being stung because I’ve done it before and the bees are usually very gentle.
Fearless Grandpa, bees and helpers
- Then there were the simple one-on-one moments when we rode out together on the 4-wheeler, then sat on each child’s special spot, their own lookout point perched above the majestic canyon. No profound insights shared or expected. No grandfatherly wisdom or advice given. Not even a photo taken because our spot is a secret. Just two people joined in the bond of family, enjoying God’s grand creations, together.
- Even the harder moments like trying to console an inconsolable grandson after a painful yellow jacket sting, knowing that where I was failing, my sweet daughter and son-in-law would make up the difference and, in the end, everything would be fine, an unforgettable memory in the life of a brave little boy.
I can tell you now, it just doesn’t get any better than that.
Yeah, I guess I’m just a slow learner. I still struggle with the question of whether I’m actually retired or not. It’s taken a long time to settle into my true calling in life. Maybe I’ll print up some new calling cards with the title, “Grandpa”.
the Village on Sewanee Creek 
Being “Mimi” (my grandma name) is one of the best of roles. Truly, after all the mortal struggles, family is the best.
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I think there’s a lot to be said for just being yourself and enjoying simple things that are far more important than career can ever be. I think that career is only what you do to make money not who you are. Many times we build it up to a level of importance that it never should have been.
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