How close you are with your grandparents really seems to depend on your culture. In a lot of western cultures, your grandparents are but distant relatives, yet the eastern half of the globe puts a lot of emphasis on the relationships between grandchildren and grandparents. Being raised with European values has taught me the importance of the people who have raised both my parents and me. As much as there is that I can say about the Russian culture, I’m forever grateful for its role in the closeness between my grandparents and me. These two people in my life are irreplaceable, and they have been since day one.
The greatest thing about grandparents is that they’re there for you through the smallest moments just as they’re by your side in the biggest. You’ll have memories of the way they would force feed you soup when you were little, and you’ll have memories of them at your high school graduation. When you were five, they would carry your backpack as you walked home from school, and when your cat dies, they call to offer comfort. They’re proof of the claim that the older are the wiser, but you’ll never realize it until you’re looking back on their advice – which they have plenty of if you just ask. I’ve spent summer evenings in Brooklyn, walking around the block with my grandma and talking for hours, only to come back home and stay up until late talking some more. I’ve spent hours on a porch in Poconos listening to my grandpa tell me about the army, countless stories of which I have multiple favorites. He’s so busy telling me about the bear that his squadron adopted that he lets his cigarette die out; we come inside eventually only because the mosquitoes are eating us alive.
There’s no one better to come to when you need someone to talk to. When you’ve talked to your friends about all the stuff that’s been driving you crazy and you still feel anxious; when you’ve told your mom about school stress and the crazy customer at work and you’re still wound up; an hour long phone conversation with your grandma is sometimes the only thing that helps. Sure, at some point she’ll tell you that all you need to do to feel better is to fall in love with a boy (as though that’s ever helped anyone), and of course your grandpa will pipe up to tell you that you shouldn’t ever argue with your parents over anything, ever. Yet when it comes down to it, you feel better when you’re putting down the phone at the end of the conversation. I don’t know what it is about long talks with your grandparents, but they’re good for your soul – like a warm cup of tea, like coming home.