Your Parent's Parents.

As it happens, I have fond memories of both sets of my grandparents.

One used to bring us Timbits and licorice nearly every week, and we still have the glass jar of Splenda he used in his coffee, long dusty and unused.

The other side always seemed to have a more careful approach to grand-parenting; sleepovers where we had snacks of chips, precisely five M&M's a piece, after which we got to bed on time.

Since there was never any mutual annoyance between the grandparents and myself, I was never required to look past their most obvious good qualities and dig deep for the gold. Perhaps what I never expected was when I became an adult, to discover them all over again as new, surprising, interesting...people.

And now, I'm amazed to see my grandmother doing crossword puzzles while she listens to the radio and to discover that we have a mutual fondness for Johnny Cash. Funny, buy we laugh at the same things in a way I don't remember at those sleepovers.

Now I realize another grandparent as a woman and personality, far more determined than any other person I have met. Yet she needs affirmation, and we say "I love you" in a way we never used to.

And I see the love of more than a grandfather, but a man and husband, who overcomes his natural quiet and comes to the rescue when she's forgotten.

If nothing else, human beings are the most complicated combinations you will find of character contradictions and deep seated propensities.

It appears that grandparents are the same...So love your grandparents. Love your elderly folk.

They are as special as they come.

~Olivia