Different Love

I am just going to start off by saying, I am SO blessed. Not only did I have divorced parents who stuck around to raise Dr. Pennypacker and me, but we had all of our grandparents plus two. Plus two? Yes, plus two. We had bonus grandparents. In the two glorious years before Dr. Pennypacker was born and I was the cutest kid on the block we lived next door to Chet and Caroline an older very sweet couple who befriended my parents and helped them out by babysitting me. My parents were very young when I was born, not necessarily young for that time, but young when you think about having a kid when you were 22.

Chet and Caroline were so generous with their time and love they became Grandpa and Grandma. They loved my brother and I as if we were born of their own blood. Through grade school we would go to their house weekly and play cards, help Grandma cook, watch T.V. with Grandpa and help them eat the best home grown tomatoes in the universe. Grandpa smoked cigars and kept a small corn cob pipe around for my brother to "smoke" with him. Grandma would let me wash my face with Pond's Cold Cream every night with her, her skin was beautiful.

If I close my eyes, I can see the Norwegian knick knacks in their tiny little duplex, I must have stood for hours and studied every collectible salt and pepper shaker in their curio cabinet. My favorites were the black and white ceramic cat set. Grandma loved moth balls. Everything she did smelled like moth balls. I cannot eat lefsa this day without thinking "hmmmm, it is missing that special flavor, oh yeah, moth balls!"

I get annoyed with my parents sometimes for spending so much time and energy on their adopted grandchild, but then I have to remember how loved we were by two people who had no familial commitments yet loved us anyway.

Caroline passed away yesterday after almost 6 years of life in a nursing home without Chet and without speech or freedom of movement, she suffered a massive stroke while I was in college. My mom said that the parade of nursing home employees that came to say goodbye to her lasted for hours.

It is my policy that when people die to celebrate your memories of them and not mourn their deaths. This post could easily be ten pages crammed with memories, but I will stop with this. My life is better because they loved me.