I remember being young and going on many different adventures with my grandparents that ranged anywhere from picking green beans in their garden so that we can fix them for supper that night, or fishing somewhere in East Tennessee/Western North Carolina border on a dirt-covered back road that nobody has ever heard of. Spending your time with your grandparents as you get older, seems to become more and more valuable to not only them, buy you. In retrospect, we all have things that we wish we would have done differently and mine would have been to spend more time with my grandparents and even calling them whenever I have a free minute. Now that I'm in college, it seems that I don't have as much time as I thought that I would, to call them or send them a piece of mail or go on weekend trips when I'm home. It seems like my life it consumed by busy work anymore. If you're feeling the same as myself, I have a list of things that I wish I would have done differently for each of my grandparents and hopefully you'll be able to avoid the same mistakes that I made.
Give them a call, even if it's just for five minutes in between classes.
I can't tell you how many times I had at least an hour or two between classes and after I finished either sitting on my butt outside on the quad, or napping, I wished I would have given them a call. I still do this and it seems to slip my mind a lot more than it should. Giving your grandparents a call, no matter how long and no matter what's said, whether it involves a laugh, cry, or anywhere in between. It means more to them than you'll realize.
Send them a hand-written letter/card/photograph
Growing up with a very sentimental family, there were and still are a lot of pictures lying around my grandparents house and each time I go over, I seem to find pictures I haven't seen before that point in time. Speaking from experience, my grandparents absolutely love handwritten letters, cards, and even pictures of yourself. The action is what makes the object sentimental, it's not the object itself that they love so much.
Say "I love you" often
Being as old as I am and as busy as I am now, I don't know how long it'll be until I get to see my grandparents again because life happens and there's a lot of different factors that play into why you may not get to talk to them as much. Now, if your grandparents are "with it" and text, unlike mine, just send them a message that says "I love you" and I promise you that it'll make them feel like the #1 grandparent of all time. A simple three word, 8-letter text can make a world of difference in someone's life, so why not send it to your grandparents. If you can't text them, then give them a quick 5 minute call and just say that you love them and that'd mean even more, because it's your voice they want to hear.
Re-visit places that you've been
Once again, as a person who has grown up in a sentimental household, I grew up going to a lot of the same places each time I was with my grandparents, whether it was the same fishing spot, the same restaurant, or even the same barber to get a haircut. Take them to one of those places if you have a free day because you can have the opportunity to revisit past memories or even make new ones.
Listen, you never know how much time you have with your grandparents and you don't know when you'll get to see them last, so make the time that you have together, count. When you say you're too busy or you don't have enough time to give them a call, you need to make time. Making time for the people that have made time for you time after time will be more rewarding and the feeling you have after doing so will be phenomenal. Don't worry about the later, worry about the now.
