Mom, What Do You Mean By Grandma?
Someswar Bhagwat
Did you know that once upon a time little kids used to sleep with their grandparents and fall asleep listening to stories of days bygone. That was their introduction to yesterday and the past. The past is the corner stone of today, just as today is the foundation of tomorrow.
My childhood was spent with two widowed grandmothers as man’s life expectancy was 37 years, the average lowered by high infant mortality
My father’s younger brother was a posthumous child born 3 months after his father’s death.
I did not know both of my grandfathers because one died before I was born and the other when I was three. So I did not know what’s expected from a grandfather.
The next generation did not bother and the next did not want grandfathers. The gap between them posed generation gap problems.
Kids now think grandfathers dead as they never lived with them and their parents too never wanted them to know. The coming generations will not know anything about them just as we do not know our own forefathers. What is the name of your grandfather’s grandpa? l don’t know. My grandchildren may not even know my name. For them i died long ago.
Researching for a book on the ‘Golden Years’ (old age) I came across a motivational book titled ‘Who Will Cry When ou die’ It was by Robiñ Sharma, famous for “The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari” ( He believed, as I mistakenly thought once that clever, startling titles sold books. He must have found by now that most people don’t read) I skipped the book (but remember the title) as it does not fit the content of my book.
I realised that no one – leave aside the grandchildren even their parents – does.
They are too busy They are too busy to say with what, or do not know it themselves.
Or they say, as in the Lilian Roth film (the latec1950s?) “I will cry tomorrow.”
