Will The Circle Be Unbroken

When I was born, I had lots of living grandparents. Exactly four grandparents, two great grandfathers and three great grandmothers. I knew them all and remember them well.

It is for precisely this reason that I decided to have my children at a young age myself. In fact, that is pretty much the only reason I had 'em so young. I wanted them to know their grandparents like I had know mine. The fact that we had an immature marriage, no money and no idea how to raise a family seemed of little importance.
It's a decision I do not regret.
My kids, daboyz, were born to four grandparents and seven great grand parents. They knew most of them and can remember them well. I think my husband's grandma in Alabama was the only one they never officially met.
My grandparents were the best. I loved going to their homes where they kept toys just for me. On my mom's side there were four of us grands but two lived in California making it seem like it was just my sister and myself. On my dad's side we were also the only grands until my cousin was born but that was in 2000; so it's pretty much the same deal.
Grandparents can love you and spoil you and send you home. That makes for a great relationship. They don't have to take responsibility for your academic success or your table manners so they can just lavish you with adoration. That's because in visits that are guaranteed to end, anyone can be adorable. They have a little more money because they aren't trying to keep you fed and clothed so they can buy you a Barbie Dream House for Christmas and give you a dollar to spend at Woolworth's. They don't have you wrapped around their ankles while they try to sweep the kitchen so they are thrilled to have you sit in their lap and play with their nostrils. They don't have to beat you into learning your spelling words so they are thrilled to have you read that same sorry single kids book they keep at their house to them for the gazillionth time.
Your grandparents don't have to drag your sorry butt to bed by 9:00 to get you up whining for school so when you spend the night, they let you giggle until midnight and pretend not to hear. They only feed you on occasion so if you want peanut M & Ms they let you have 'em. Let the parents force feed the wax beans.
They say it's great to be a grandparent. I think it's great to be a grandchild. I know, I am one. You see, when you were one you remain one even when you're forty years old. When you can lay your own newborn into the arms of your gramma and grampa, you can see the look in their eyes that must have been there when they first held you. It reminds you of how loved you've always been.
I'm sad for people that don't know their grandparents. I'm glad I had those babies of mine young despite being broke and stupid. That's another good function of grandparents anyway, to provide the money and the wisdom the parents lack. Keeps the parents humble and the babies in diapers.
As I say good bye one by one to the grandparents who loved me so , I am grateful all over again for the grandparents daboyz have. My mom and dad learned well from the examples of their parents. They are the kind of grandparents I had, loving and adoring. Encouraging and tolerant. They never made them take a bath when they went up north so daboyz came home so filthy their bath water would turn gray for three days.
That's the kind of grandparents every kid should have.
Thank you Lord, for grandparents.

1 Timothy 5:4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.