Being there when my grandparents saw their destroyed home for the first time was heartbreaking.
But I'm glad I was there because you learn about people in their response to adversity and tragedy. My grandpa put his arm around my grandma's shoulders, both of their backs straight and strong.
"We're young and we have our health," he said. "We'll rebuild."
He was 75 and she was 70 at the time.
Grandma and Grandpa stayed with us that night. I assumed they'd be staying with us for awhile. (And I was kind of excited about the prospect.) The next day though, they went into town and bought a trailer. There was no way to diminish their brand of independence.
They hired builders and began work on cleaning up the burned ruins and starting again.
On Christmas Eve, eight months after the fire, we helped them move their belongings into their beautiful new log home. It contained a mix of things that had survived the fire and new items. On a low table sat a new conversation piece, silver dollars melted together into a lump. The silver dollars had been in the fire proof safe that turned out to not be exactly fire proof.
My grandma filled the new kitchen windows with red geraniums.
The hub that was grandma's and grandpa's house changed quite dramatically but they were the same: strong, smiling, self-reliant. So the house was, in an essential indescribable way, the same. And filled our need for stability and tradition and family.
Adam and I had our wedding reception at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Braeden and me, stopping to see Grandma and Grandpa on a visit to Nevada from Connecticut.
4 comments:
Having your wedding reception there seems very symbolic to me to have hard working and resiliance in it's makeup. You have some great grandparents. The red geraniums remind me I wanted to buy some at Costco for our yard.
I am loving those red geraniums more and more every day.
Wow! You were a young slip of a thing weren't you?
I'm not one to question your accuracy, but Grandma and Grandpa stayed with us for more than one night. While I'm at it, didn't Marianne minor in math and not major in it?
I guess if you're the one writing, you can write whatever you want.
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