Grandparents Where Do We Find the Time By Dr. Juan Harrison

Boy, times have changed.  Just yesterday it seems I was cleaning up piles of toys left behind as the young ones departed out the patio door.  Today I looked up to see a 4- year- old on one TV, a 7-year-old on a bedroom TV, and an 8-year-old on another TV.  They were occupied by Minecraft and a myriad of other programs.  They operate the remote controls and have done so better than we have done for quite a while.  I usually have Bluey or some Disney program going when I know they are coming.

I line up the mac &cheese for the microwave as Mamaw finishes up the home school assignment listed by their mom.  I take their drink orders and get em ready for lunch.  I line up a few snacks on the kitchen countertop for a help yourself!  By now Mamaw is getting things set up for some Rack-O on the big dining room table.  The young ones show no mercy as they trample Mamaw in the dust.

Wednesdays are a workday for Mamaw and Papaw as part of our paralegal duties for our lawyer son.  It frees up Mama and GeeGee to work on schedules, payments, hearings, wills, and court dates.  Some days Mamaw joins them with her notary stamp or a trip to deposit checks or pick up cleaning. The name of the game is doing anything to help free Clay up to spend his time working on important stuff.  His full-time paralegal operates online from Dallas as she cares for her two children.

Life is so full of twists and turns.  When we both retired, I don’t think we envisioned interviewing old dairymen and running to neighboring towns getting signatures and delivering checks.  I’ve kept my little landscaping /lawn business and continued my weekly posts on Facebook and Front Porch News with Mamaw typing and Clay posting them each week. My other son Ryan has helped us put my last 5 books on Amazon for people to read at bedtime to help them doze off.

I say all this to ask ourselves how do we make time for all this.  The senior class I teach at church caps off 60 years of SS teaching starting at age 19 with junior high boys.  I think my wife and I have taught just about every age group.  As she did in my administrative career, Mamaw does the phone calls and lady parties to help make me look good.  After my retirement I worked 5 years serving as Visitation Pastor for the church.  Remembering how at the end of Mom’s stay in the nursing home hardly anyone but us went by to see her as her dementia worsened.  Maybe it was my way of helping ease the loneliness of a few shut-ins and nursing home residents in our church.  Soon enough it could be my time.  After a fall on the ice recently I ended up with some mobility issues with my left arm.  As of this writing, I still plan to crank up my mowing business.  Got several little ladies counting on me.  It’s been my therapy over the years.  Fashionably I’ve taken to calling it my mowing aerobics.  Always said if I had to exercise, I’d rather be paid for it.  Just now as a neighbor recuperating from knee replacement rings my doorbell to see if I can do his yard until he recuperates, old 80-year-old body once again feels infused with a little adrenaline as I tell him I’ll give it a try.  Don’t tell my wife.  She might try to spank me.

 By Dr. Juan Harrison