When our first granddaughter was born, it was an exciting time for my husband and me, as it is for most first-time grandparents. My husband had never known any of his grandparents.
They were all deceased by the time of his birth, so when we married, he experienced the closeness I had with my grandparents and heard stories of how my grandparents affected my life and influenced me as I grew up. He talked a great deal about how he wanted to be a good grandparent.
That Christmas, he decided to write a letter to our granddaughter to tell her how important she was to him and how excited he was to experience her birth and be able to share in her life. Although at 7 months of age she couldn’t read the letter, her parents and great-grandmother shared reading the letter and shed tears of joy over the love it represented and the stories of experiences together during her first seven months of life. To my husband’s surprise, our son-in-law asked, “Are you going to write her a letter next year?” Could he say no?
Now, more than 24 years later, there are scrapbooks of letters and accompanying pictures for both her and her younger sister. They recount trips to the zoo, picnics in the park, a trip to Disney World, overnight stays, swim meets, high school concerts, dance recitals, a first car, visits to college, professional baseball games attended, and much, much more.
Over the years, the girls went from having their individual letters read to them to excitement when they could sit alone, almost in a trance, reading the letters themselves. In each, they hear, in his own words, what sharing these events means to their grandfather and me, anecdotes about the events, and how much they’re loved.
