National Grandparents Day: My Grandparents

These are my grandparents, Diane and Martin who will be celebrating National Grandparents Day today. As they both reach the octogenarian status you'd never know it. They are both sharp as a tack and will whip your ass in a game of scrabble if you're brave enough to play with them. Married nearly sixty years after meeting at a dance, these two have a love affair that has spanned decades, four children and share the cutest banter you've ever seen on an older couple. They only visit us in Florida once a year, but their many recent travels include Australia, Mexico, Hawaii, Israel... I keep telling my Grandma how jealous I am and ask her to pack me in her luggage, but she says she's lived long enough, "She deserves it". Truly she does.

They've both lived interesting and challenging lives. My Grandfather Martin's father was a jewish immigrant from Russia whose family fled during the Cossack invasion. Soon after arriving in the United States, his father died of Tuberculosis and his mother, unable to care for him placed him in the care of the state. My great-grandfather grew up in an orphanage but was still able to become a succesful lawyer in NYC. His son, my Grandfather grew up in a divorced household and worked as a scientist and teacher and obtained his Phd. from Northwestern University before retiring as a professor from the Illinois Institue of Technology.

My grandmother was born the only child of a forty-eight year old mother and her slightly younger husband in Brooklyn, New York. That's right, in 1930 my great grandmother gave birth without the aide of fertility drugs to her only daughter. She always said, she was doted on to a fault but I guess those are the breaks.

I have so much to thank my Grandparents and especially Grandmother for. Previously a young single woman, many a time Grandma had helped me pay rent, supplement my car payment... she is just an incredible woman who deserves more than just one day to celebrate her and I am well aware how blessed I am to have these two people in my life. (She may have a hard time saying 'I Love You" and expressing emotion) but I know she does love me and I love her so much in return!