Grandfather

Grandfather

An obvious source of insight.

It's happening more frequently now.
I'm thinking of my grandparents,
wondering what they were doing,
and what they thought about
in their middle years.

In 1953 one of my grandfathers
died in a horrific farm accident.
In 1958 the other grandfather
was my same age now.

It's hard for me to imagine
either grandfather held doubt
about the world he knew,
or was ever uncertain
about his place within it.

Both likely came to understand,
as I'm just beginning to learn,
how unwilling most of us are
to embrace life's ambiguity,
allowing change to overtake us.

The grandfather I knew
lived for forty more years,
long enough for me to witness
the interior distances he traveled
to become an enduring source
of love and generativity.

---

You have to do your own growing
no matter how tall your grandfather was.
~ Abraham Lincoln