Missing a grandparent decades after the death

When I turned 18.I went to see her my mom I mean. I found out so much that I couldn't process. My grandparents were wonderful. They explained everything that happened, and came away with so much more that I understood. Lol, It's unbelievable but Billy Ray Cysus used to cut their grass. It's really hard to believe bit It's true.

Of course not, OP. You’re lucky to have good memories of someone. Many don’t even have that.

OP - Not at all. My maternal grandmother and I connected on so many different levels. She was an amazing person who loved art, travel, music, and theater and would always send her grandchildren great books for their birthdays and Christmas. She died from pancreatic cancer in 1986 at the age of 81, just 3 weeks shy of her 82nd birthday. On Thanksgiving 1985, she pulled me aside and whispered to me: "Let's take a trip together, just you and me. I'll pay for it!".

Alas, the trip never happened, but I've created/recreated that "trip" 1,000 times in my head and what it would have been like. I miss her more than I've ever missed anybody in my life. My mother died last October and I never shed a tear about it nor have I missed her in any way, shape, or form.

The good news is that she and I had about an hour of private time in hospice a few days before she died. We got to tell each other everything that was on our hearts, and this made everything okay in the long run for me. Also, I was the only grandchild that she included in her last will. It allowed me to put the down payment on my home 8 years later.

R3 here again. To put a more crass interpretation on the subject:

"The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy." - Sam Levenson

Missing a parent decades after the death.

When I listen to *Yellow Ledbetter* by Pearl Jam I think of my grandparents. They lived through WW2, and lost a son to the Korean War. They lived trough alot.

Stop attention seeking, OP!

I miss my maternal grandmother 50 years after he death from congestive heart failure. She died just three weeks before my 10th birthday / Thanksgiving 1973. I still think about her every day, and dream about her often (the dream is that I'm walking into her backyard - she lived a few blocks away from me - and she's sitting there, looking the same as she did when I was little. She asks why I haven't visited her in the past 50 years). I still miss my mother terribly (it's been 27 years for her) and my dad (he died from COVID in 2020).

r8 hug. You're a good kid.

My great grandparents were (and still are) the two best people I've ever met. Grandma lived until I was 14; grandpa until I was 21. So I knew them all of my young life.

He was a self made man who helped build the Hoover Dam during the Depression. He taught me to ALWAYS be pro union (if anyone said anything bad about FDR he'd cut that person!), have a bowl of ice cream after every meal (just one scoop - never two), be frugal most days, but splurge once a year, tip well, and always have a dog.

She taught me to do a crossword puzzle every day (keep that mind sharp!), travel every single chance you can (she visited every state and every continent including Antarctica), live near water if you can, and never complain but if you must, make the complaint worthwhile and get what you want fixed.

I just adored them. They loved me and my sisters and I think they knew how much we loved and appreciated them. The rest of my childhood was dark, depressing, lonely and horrible. They were my beacons. When my poor seamstress mom lost everything (after my father abandoned the family), they swooped in and bought us a house - which utterly changed the entire direction and scope of my life (and my sisters). We were homeless. They saved us from living on the streets.

My grandmother (bitch) did not want them to do this because it took from her inheritance and caused a huge rift between my mom and her parents. My great grandparents basically told my grandmother to STFU. God, I loved them.

Wooooooow on this thread, it must be in the air.

I hosted Easter last Saturday, my mom came over, and we gave her the remaining boxes of my grandmother’s photo collection (grandmother passed away three years ago when I was 48). We spent about 1.5 hours going through a huge box filled with photos. Sooooooo many memories.

My grandpa was a second father to us as my own father lost himself in drinking after the divorce. My grandpa taught me to fish, how to clean fish, make an omelette, and bend sheet metal for ductwork (he owned an HVAC company). He was the top Carrier salesman and they rewarded him with trips all over the world with my grandmother, they went to every major continent. On Saturday my mom and I looked at pics of them in Athens, Acapulco, Rome, etc…… it was a life well-lived.

My grandmother was cold in some ways, but also so sweet in others. She was Canadian, her father worked for the Canadian national railway, he was a “fireman” which meant a coal shoveler. He broke his back and died after not recovering from his injury.

My grandfather’s mother got married to a “ne’er do well” who she had a son with, then she divorced, remarried a vet from WW1 and had my grandfather and his sister. Second husband lost a leg from schrapnel, he died when grandfather was 3.

So both grandparents lost their fathers at a young age. Neither was super warm and fuzzy, but I felt save, loved, and that I was learning things. I appreciate them more the older I get. My grandfather is the one who really filled the gap after my dad left. He made sure we were ok, my mom didn’t even get child support, but my grandpa made sure she didn’t lose the house, he maintained our HVAC, made my brother and I learn how to do more chores when my mom had to work a lot. Watching him die when I was 18 was one of the worst things I experienced in my tumultuous young life.

It is amazing to contemplate how much our grandparents shaped who we are today — for me, there is both good and bad, but I see now (finally) mostly good. They both came from trauma and loss, gave that to their two daughters, and my mom gave it to me. But they also gave me a love of the outdoors, good food, my work ethic, and my love of learning.

Last story, my grandpa’s family could only afford for one of the three to go to college — it was the oldest brother. My grandfather carried the shame of no college his whole life, which was bad, but he also used that to motivate himself to read all the time, and he especially loved reading history. He needn’t feel any shame, he built a company with 12 people doing commercial HVAC in Chicago, he provided a huge nest egg to his wife, who passed down the rest. He was a provider and did well, it’s sad that he still felt shame on his education.

The generation of my parents - born in the late 1920's - would have never had a mother working, and my married sisters all wanted to/had to work. Their kids were babysat by my mother, who bit her tongue at some of the selfishness she would see in her daughters as things she would never do. My nieces/nephews still talk more lovingly if their grandparents as my sisters divorced their husbands. One of my nephews told me how lucky my sibs and I were. So no, I totally get you missing your grandparents.

I still miss mine even though they’ve been gone 25 to nearly 40 years now, especially around the holidays. Holidays have never been the same without them

So many warm memories of my nonna.

She didn't speak English well so I was her translator from a young age. I felt so important talking to people on the phone or in stores on her behalf.

She liked John Beradino (Dr. Hardy) on General Hospital so I often translated GH for her. I still watch GH because of her.

I wish I could go back in time and ask her so many questions about herself, things like her favourite books and movies and friends,