Had a very minor surgery on Thursday. I had a ganglion cyst removed from my finger. On my return home from the hospital, I greeted my “grandchildren” who are visiting. This minor diversion to the hospital has given me the chance to be with my grandchildren, all five of them, during the weekend. What a Grand time to be with the Grandchildren. What a great time I had admiring each and every one of them.
In the not too distant future I will begin my seventh decade here on the planet. Being around for that amount of time and looking at the prospect of my 7th decade allows me to take stock of where I am and what has happened in my life.
There have been a lot of changes over the years. Today we live in a society dominated by technology. I have a cell phone that can just about do anything. It has a GPS unit that can guide me to any destination with an address. I can watch videos on that phone. I can send a text message to friends or family. I can take a picture of my grandson or granddaughter and send it to my wife or to my friends. I can search for a restaurant, a church house, a recreation venue, or just about anything else on the phone. I can transfer money from one account to the other. What can’t I seem to do on this phone? I can view actual live events as they take place. I can do all of this on my phone. 40 years ago my family, not me, had a phone on a party line and we had a TV. However, it was black and white and all we could get were three national networks, three channels, and no way to record the programming. We had transistor radios, which I thought were fantastic. So much has changed.
What have I learned so far? I have learned that family relationships are paramount. I have learned that love can be deep and lasting, but that one must nourish it every day or it can become fleeting. I have learned that some people “have my back”, while others can’t wait to see me make a mistake or do harm to me and those I care about. I have learned that the definition of friendship and marriage for many people has taken on a brand new color. I understand that I no longer live in the same world that I grew up in. I savor reconnecting with old relationships. Modern technology, through such things as facebook, has allowed me to once again part of the lives that I knew so long ago. Friendship no longer needs to be just dependent on geography or phone calls. I have learned that the strength of use is fleeting, that with age new challenges arise to challenge our ability to cope. Pains appear where once youthful tissue was. Financial challenges set on us from all sides, either personally caused or cast upon us by circumstances no longer under our control. I have learned that public service, just like church or family service, can bring much satisfaction. It can also bring challenges.
I have learned to appreciate the good. There is so much that is not so good in this world, but there is also so much joy and beauty in the world. There is natural beauty, beauty created by man, and mostly the beauty created by God. There are things that make it all worth it, outside of the family and the human relationships. I still treasure sunrises and sunsets. I treasure the beauty of newly fallen snow. Mountains intrigue me.
What is the outlook for this seventh decade? Well, I hope to be able to savor the family relationships that I have, watching grandchildren grow up, and watching my children mature and lead their own families. I look forward to building current relationships and renewing others. I look forward to making good relationships, and I hope my memory lasts long enough to remember the relationships. I hope to improve my health. I hope to keep what I have. I hope to do good. I am so glad that I have this life.
I love looking into the eyes of a precious 4 month old granddaughter, with her smiling at me and cooing and so adorable. I love playing with a 3 year old granddaughter and enjoying her discussions with grandpa and her being a grown up girl. I love my 1 year old granddaughter who plays so coy and smiles so beautifully. She loves to play with my adoration. I love my 4 year old grandson and all the games he plays with grandpa. He has so much energy. I love my 2 year old grandson and his wonderful playfulness. I love being a father to such wonderful sons and daughters, and grandpa to my grandchildren. This is what life is all about.
One of the greatest challenges as a grandparent who loves his grandchildren is to get them to warm up to him and be willing to give him the time of day. We visited Gordon and Christie yesterday and when we did so, Claire was her usual reserved and shy self.
During the course of the afternoon, I managed to get her to do some playing with me. It was a wonderful challenge and she warmed up a lot. Of course, leave it to the grandchild whisperer (my wife) to get her to let her hold her and carry her around while the mother and father were in site. I guess I lack some grandfathering skills. At least she wasn’t hiding from me anymore.
Another funny thing was what my oldest grand daughter said to me. She said our house was smaller than theirs and that we didn’t have any food there so we should stay with them. She was so cute. I love the grandkids.
And God created man in the image of God.
Today a new granddaughter is coming to this earth. I am reminded of the specialness of life and of the grace of God.
I spent the evening the other night listening to my children playing games and acting as Rock Musicians in the front room of Chris’s home. The interesting sound was listening to the grand babies talking and yaking with the adults. It was so fun. It makes this struggle we call life all worth it when you hear the next generations next generation interacting and enjoying being with their parents. The grandparents just sat in the background and listened.
We are up in Wyoming this weekend, dealing with Family Chaos. I use that term to describe the challenges to the family during the last two weeks. We have had 3 of 4 of the Wyoming Hardys in the process of moving. That is the chaos we are dealing with because this will be a new experience for everyone
First, Chris bought a new house and moved last weekend. I was not able to be there because of work concerns. I have been inundated of late at work and I couldn’t leave Utah. All the family forces were marshaled in Cheyenne and they helped him move. That job is still not finished.
This weekend it is Brian and Crystal and Julies turn. Bryan and Crystal are moving to Laramie because he has been accepted into the WICHE program for Medical School at the University of Washington in Seattle. He spends his first year in Laramie before moving to Seattle. That will be a great adventure.
Then, since Brian and Crystal are moving, that forces Julie to move to another place in Cheyenne. Therefore, this will be a very busy weekend moving the kids to where they need to be. I hope all goes well. We had one casualty last week when an arcade game got dropped on Gordon’s foot. It was still really swollen last night when we stopped in Laramie.
I hope that the chaos settles down. I am feeling older though, really not wanting to make the 8 hour trip as much anymore between Payson and Cheyenne. I do enjoy the kids. What I don’t enjoy is the sitting in the car for so long. It is so long across miles and miles of Wyoming desert.
I had a wonderful day yesterday. I didn’t do much of anything if it is measured by the number of projects that I have finished, people I have visited with, meetings attended, or just plain money earned. It didn’t amount to much if you measure it by the adoration of the world, the acknowledgment of what you accomplish by statesmen, or if you measure it by how your yard looks. It also didn’t amount to much if you measure it by how the day was recorded for posterity.
However, it was great because I was able to sit with my family, enjoy their friendship, company, and conversation, and most importantly for us old people, get to hold our grandchildren and play with them. As we get older, a lot of things tend to start working not as well as advertised. The old ticker begins to have problems, we gain weight and can’t seem to get it off, the blood pressure is out of line, and our blood sugars may not be in line with guidelines. However, one thing we get to see is life renewed, the hope of the race through those choice spirits that come to us as our grandchildren. I got to hold and feed each one of our two grandchildren, and it was a treat. I love their parents and my children, but I also deeply love those grandchildren. They are a special treat to us old people.
I love spending a holiday or special day with the family. Today is Easter. We have had the opportunity to be with the family today, and that has been a wonderful opportunity. I love watching my children, and now my grandchildren, as they interact with each other and as we share their lives. Yes, being a father and a grandfather has been a wonderful experience.
This has been a wonderful Christmas. This is my first Christmas as a Grandpa. I didn’t get to have Christmas with Braxton, but we did have Christmas with Miranda. It was so fun to have new members of our family, with whom we can celebrate the birth of the Savior. I was holding Miranda yesterday and thought about what it must have been like to hold the baby Jesus when he was first born. This is a wonderful holiday.