During this time of uncertainty, we tend to cling to what we know to be true. The one thing I have been most certain of since the day I was born is my grandparent's everlasting love. My grandma, Judy, and grandpa, Bruce, have been married for 55 years, and met at the ages of sixteen and seventeen. I cling to the idea of their love.
My grandma has been telling me the story of how she met my grandpa since the day I could talk. More realistically, since the day I could listen. To my surprise, my grandma set my grandpa up with one of her best friends. As a little girl, I could not understand this. How could she ever let somebody so awesome date somebody else? If it was not already clear, I adore my grandfather. I always hold my breath at this part of the story, even though I know the ending. I simply could not understand how she could just set him up with somebody else. As my grandma explained to me, they were supposedly "just friends" at the time, but it is clear in my grandma's eyes everytime she tells the story that she knew she had made a mistake all along. The story continues, and some time had passed without them seeing each other. When my grandfather returned home, he walked up my grandma's lawn, wearing gold clam diggers, kissed her, and said, "How's my girl?" The rest, as they say, is history.
My grandparents are a true love story. Not the ones you hear as a young child that start with once upon of time and end with happily ever after. Nothing like that, really. There was no poisonous apple, no fairy godmother, and certainly no magic spells that brought the two of them together. Rather, it was just two simple things, a girl and a boy who loved each other, and will continue to love each other, through the test of time. Two people who were willing to do anything to make it work, to make their love prevail. And by anything, I mean getting married twice, once to avoid the draft, and once to celebrate with friends and families. By anything I mean transferring schools to be closer to one another, and working endless hours to provide for and take care of their family. There is truly nothing that my grandparents would not do to preserve their love.
This past February, it was my grandmother's seventy-fifth birthday (I am sorry for dating you Grandma, but this is important). We celebrated her birthday as a family, all of the cousins came home from school, and we were all under the same roof for the first time in what felt like forever. While the entire evening was a wonderful celebration of my grandmother, there was one moment that particularly tugged on my heart strings. My grandpa spoke, and he spoke such loving and caring words, words that illuminated their love. He wrapped up his speech by saying, "you are truly an awesome person, and my one and only." As I felt tears well up in my eyes, I could not help but question why I was becoming so emotional. Then, I looked around the room. I saw their children: my goofy Uncle Dan smiling and clapping, my mom laughing, and my kind-hearted Uncle Mike nodding and smiling in approval. I saw their grandchildren: Sam, who might have had one too many to drink that night, hooting and hollering her approval, my siblings laughing and clapping, my cousin Zoe smiling and giggling at the celebration, my cousin Ryan applauding, and myself wiping away my tears. All I could think was, "my grandparents did this. They did all of this." I could not think of a better accomplishment than this family, this incredibly beautiful, wonderfully weird family. I felt so overwhelmingly lucky to have these people and be part of this family. I knew in this moment, that was all I could ever want: a family that is solely built off of my everlasting love. One cannot even measure the magnitude of that accomplishment, of that love.
To my grandparents, thank you. Thank you for showing me the type of love that is stronger than anything else in this world. Thank you for showing me who I want to be and how I want to be. Thank you for giving me the most perfect, beautiful, wonderfully weird family. Thank you for teaching me what truly matters, and for showing me exactly what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be my grandparents, my incredible, loving, and admirable grandparents, when I grow up. I will forever cling to the idea of your love, and know it to be the one thing that is true.
