Engulfed by Love

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

My grandparents on both my mom’s and my dad’s sides lived in Las Vegas. When I was a kid, every two years or so our family would make the trek across the country from whichever military installation where my dad was assigned to go “home”. Oddly enough, both my mom’s and my dad’s mom would greet us at the door with the same words: “Heck sakes! Look who came to visit.” They were both tiny women—somewhere around 5 ft. By the time I was in 7^th grade, I towered over them. Both came from HUGE families by today’s standards–one with 11 siblings and one with 18 siblings. But most important, though we only visited infrequency, when they opened their doors, we were engulfed by love. (My brothers and I always giggled at my dad’s mother. She invariably said, “My baby’s come home”—which we thought was hilarious as my dad was 6’ 4” and had to bend almost in half to hug his mother. But he was her “baby” till the day she died.)

When I first moved to my current home 20 years ago, I was struck by how many grandparents in our neighborhood were raising their grandchildren. I personally knew three families within the two-block radius surrounding my house with folks in their 60’s caring for grandkids. At least two of those homes had small children, and both sets of those grandparents had adult children who were caught up in the drug culture. Now that I’m officially old, I can’t imagine the courage and stamina it must have taken for those grandparents to deal with several children ages five and under. What might have happened to those little people if their grandparents hadn’t stepped up to watch over them? I read a report recently which said almost 16,000 grandparents in Utah have self-reported to be the primary caretakers for their grandchildren.

I moved away from my extended family when I was five. I never lived near them again, and yet, both grandmothers had a profound effect on the direction of my life. Both were women of faith. My dad’s  mother, a single mom of four, not only supported her sons literally with the work of her hands, but she was also the Primary president in her ward for 30 years—and she was the church organist for more than 40 years until her fingers were so arthritic she could no longer manage the keyboard. My mother’s mother set the standard for courage in our family, surviving a horrific fire and forging ahead regardless of the residual pain for the next sixty years, and which also included raising a son with Down Syndrome born in her forties. When she was in her ninth decade, she was awarded Nevada’s highest civilian honor for her 50-year dedication to improving the lives of children like my uncle.

Since I had never lived anywhere near my extended family, when I married, my mom’s parents opened their home in Las Vegas to me for a small family wedding reception. My husband has never gotten over the fact that his mother and his aunt were the only members of his family who attended the celebration. I, on the other hand, had 300 family members who came through the reception line. Fortunately, we had limited the guest list to only aunts, uncles, plus first and second cousins! (There were three other wedding receptions in my family that night. So my extended family members rotated through all four enjoying yummy refreshments and catching up on the doings of each other’s children and grandchildren.)

In my own children, it’s easy to see the influence of their grandparents. My husband was an only child and an only grandchild. His parents were both thrilled and shocked when he provided eight grandchildren. Our six sons have guaranteed the Voorhies family name is not likely to disappear in coming generations. My mom and dad showed up at the birth of every child to help manage the herd while I was in the hospital, or at girl’s camp, or whenever we required help. (Now that I am my parents’ age, I recognize taking charge of my family in our absence must have required a week of recuperation when they escaped back to their normal lives.)

Plus, the lifetime dedication my parents had to both faith and education has been a constant beacon to my children, who have thrived under the influence of their grandparents’ examples. And during the very bad years when Son #2 self-medicated his depression and bipolarity with hard-core drug addiction, he created an ongoing nightmare in our home. Rather than run away, he called his grandparents and asked for help. He knew where he would be safe. What greater gift could they have offered him?

My husband and I are the grandparents now. We’re the ones who are tired when we provide intervention for the exhausted parents of little people. We’re the ones who are the safe house for grandchildren in need. And we’re the ones who thank heaven every night for our ever-widening circle of love.