An ode to grandparents...

Grandparents are very special people. They are the best example of unconditional love we have this side of heaven. Unlike parents, who are expected to shape us into model citizens, grandparents exist for pure enjoyment.

The radio listener who continuously describes parents as the main source of her stress needs a good grandparent to balance her equation.

Grandparents like to keep in touch. I know grandmothers in their 70s who have learned to tap out text messages with their arthritic thumbs, set up laptops to receive email; and a grandpa who risks life and limb by climbing a tree every day at 6 pm. just to make sure that his grandchildren will get through to speak to him using the cellphone network! (I am happy to note that the network is improving all the time and not many of us have to mimic our missing ancestors in order to talk on the phone.)

A grandparent who has raised 10 children or more is likely to be a good cook. Although my grandmother died more than a decade ago, I can still remember the taste of her fried eggs and pancakes. Somehow, anything that granny cooks is special.

Despite the efforts of my grandfather to build a stone house with a nice concrete floor for my granny circa 1940, my granny kept her traditional kitchen with its earth floor until her death.

Indeed when my cousins arrived to visit from America and explored granny’s house, one of them commented that “Grandpa built granny an excellent kitchen with a terrazzo floor, and then granny came in with a wheelbarrow full of soil and covered it all up again. (Actually, when I recently visited Tumutumu and noticed the state of the roads, I commented that granny must been at the roads, as well, with her trusty wheelbarrow.)

Grandparents, especially grandmothers, are masters of the art of creative cursing. Who else would think of shaking a walking stick at you and saying, “May you disappear like Kirigiti market.” Of course, they don’t mean any harm, as they prove when they escalate the issue and start throwing things at you – usually paper, cold ashes or plastic lids.

I guess you have to be creative when your knees are too arthritic to enable you to catch a naughty child. When they are in a better mood, grandparents are a very good source of obscure proverbs. Only a grandparent gets away with saying things like, “those who walk forwards while looking back will hit a wall.” What is really annoying is that you do hit a wall immediately after hearing this proverb, eliciting an unsympathetic “Ah ha!” from the fountain of wisdom.

Of course, age allows one to make up proverbs, safe in the knowledge that there will be no challenges regarding the origins of the parable from the new generation. By the way, does anyone know how to play those confusing word games anymore? I used to hear my grandpa say things like “The lizard leaped over the frog” and my big sister would answer “Railway” and be rewarded with a big grin.

Obviously lateral thinking preceded De Bono’s six thinking hats. In my day, grandparents preserved the fashions of the previous half-century, but today’s grandparents are very trendy (or I would like to believe so since one of my colleagues admired my shoes by saying that they look exactly like a pair worn by her granny!) Grandparents have great memories too.

They not only remember birthdays and national days but can remember everything that happened in their childhood especially the strange behaviour of their teachers and neighbours. It seems life was much more exciting in those days – there was no need to go to the cinema, you just had to step outside your front gate to have an adventure!

Best of all, there was no need for hymn books in the local church because grandparents have memorised the whole hymnbook, including the numbers of the hymns! Enjoy your grandparents this season. Remember that they have a limited shelf-life.

kategetao@yahoo.com