Impact to the Third Power

It was one of his signature contributions to the graduation ceremonies at Wyoming Seminary College Prep School. I came to treasure it so much that I added it to the commencement exercises I led for twelve years at Ascension Academy in Amarillo after leaving “SEM” in 2008. Dr. Wallace F. Stettler left quite a mark on the NE Pennsylvania school over which he presided for more than two decades, helping bring it back from the inundations of Hurricane Agnes to a place of prominence in the independent school universe. And during that time he made a point to always include it while addressing the graduates he had helped steer through high school. Before bringing his remarks to a close he liked to acknowledged the three groups of people in the audience who were most responsible for the success of each departing senior:  their teachers, their parents, and their grandparents.  And then he shared this comment:

“If you want to know what kind of job you did as a parent, look at your grandchildren.”

That may not be an exact quote, but it captures the gist of what Dr. Stettler meant to convey to those now basking in the pride of their offspring’s accomplishment. I must confess, however, I’m not sure I fully understood its implications when first hearing it with my 30-something ears. But as my own children grew into adulthood, married and brought their own offspring into the world, it really began to make sense. Now a grandparent of five, my heart beats with that mix of pride and affection that seems to be one of the hidden blessings of longevity that I never really understood, until now.

Growing up in a migratory military family, I never enjoyed any close connections to any of my own grandparents. One died before I was born, the others leaving us by the time I was a young teen. Geographical distance notwithstanding, it now seems to me that we were separated as much by circumstance and disinterest as by anything else. So aside from a very few memories, and even fewer pictures, I can’t say that grandparents played much of a role in my life. Happily I inherited two grandfathers-in-law, one, a World War I veteran with a sharp mind who enjoyed good conversation. He was as close as I ever got to having a grandparent of my own.   

So when our children began blessing our family with their own sons and daughters, I really had little prior experience in knowing what grandparenting might entail. My good wife, who really is the spiritual glue holding our extending family in place, led me by her example, helping me discover both the joys and expectations of being someone worthy of being called “Grampy.” Now the two of us find our identities reimagined as the elders upon whom five promising boys and girls look to for treats, hugs and unwavering support. And I do I hope along the way that some seeds of our advice about life and self may find fertile soil to germinate in their busy, swift-moving, 21st century lives.

I remember back to a time BC and hence BG when a colleague of mine who was already a father made this simple but profound statement:  “children are powerful.”* Truer words were never spoken to me, and few have sunk more deeply into my sense of what is real, and what abides. Grandkids are powerful too. This fact has been brought home to me in discovering how many folks whom I’ve met at our new church in Denver are, like us, grandparents who moved here from someplace else. What brought them to this city at the foot of the Rockies?  Grandchildren. It’s as if the powers that had kept us moored to a hometown or, more likely, a secure job, were no match for the magnetic draw of being close to family when work gave way to retirement. And few things tip the scale of that decision more powerfully than grandchildren. 

Following a week in which my wife and I have enjoyed watching our eldest grandchild compete in a national robotics tournament in Omaha, and then hosted our two youngest grandsons in several delightful hours doing homework, playing games, enjoying dinner and trying to spot planets in rare alignment, I have been touched once again by the impact of generational communion. No wonder we call ourselves, and them, grand. In fact, it strikes me that within this relationship, joining those on both the elder and younger ends of the familial equation, lies an exponential power that is life changing, in at least three ways.

First, we are shaped, in more ways than we might realize, by the impact that our own grandparents had on our upbringing and memory. In my case that was rather minimal, I’m afraid. But the lasting wisdom and tradition that yet informs many of my wife’s most deeply held and felt sensibilities is an ever-present part of who she is and, in turn, who I am too. For more than 30 years I observed the interplay between grandparents and grandchildren whenever the former made a point of attending their grandchildren’s performances, games, and graduations at the schools in which I taught. Not only did they look a lot like each other, but the bond of their affection was often more evident than what I witnessed when those students were in the company of their parents. I’m not sure who is more emotionally affected in this relationship spanning three generations. But I am certain it is a powerful connection that neither side should ever dismiss nor take for granted.  Never having enjoyed much closeness to my own Grampy, Nana and Pop Pop, I have been bowled over and renewed by what my own grandchildren have meant to me in my later years.

The second powerful impact of the grandparent-grandchildren relationship is what it means for both of us in facing life in the present and the future. Now this can be a rather delicate negotiation in which the parents of those grandkids—you know, our own sons and daughters—can serve as either mediators or arbitrators.   The advice, traditions and values that grandparents want and need to share with their grandkids may not always be welcomed or deemed appropriate in the eyes of the children’s parent or parents. And that can create family dynamics that resemble walking over eggshells or through minefields with hidden tripwires. But since grandparents carry so much of the living history of their families, they owe it to those grandsons and granddaughters to share and dispense the wisdom that they, and they alone, are carrying. But the window of opportunity to do this is a rather short one. The busyness and distractions of adolescence have a way of closing the doors of attention and relevancy to both grandparents and parents.  There is no underestimating the importance of—I’d even say the urgency of—making the most of the time we have with our grandkids during those tender years of their childhood when they still enjoy our company and listen to our stories, jokes, and instruction.  

The last measure of the impact that grandparents may have on their grandchildren is one we can never accurately anticipate or control. I’m speaking of the impact they will have on the world for which we are helping them prepare, that future time in which we likely will not live long enough to see and treasure. This is the realm in which metaphors best serve our understanding. For what we are doing in each moment that we share their company is casting stones into the pond of their lives, creating ripples that will extend to who knows where. It is the sowing of seeds we hope find soil fertile enough to produce hundred-fold yields. It is the planting of saplings that we trust will grow into trees under whose shadow others, long after we are gone, will find shelter. We are, in essence, participants in the miraculous cycle of generations, the importance of our part so well put by that grandfather-figure who mentored so many of us: 

“If you want to know what kind of job you did as a parent, look at your grandchildren.”

I’m not sure which of our children’s children will become engineers, artists, athletes, teachers, doctors, or paleontologists. Right now these live only in dreams and possibilities. But I feel quite certain that each of them will carry in those storehouses of memory, emotion, and value much that has been imprinted on them in living each day with their moms and dads these many years. And I take a degree of joy and hope in believing that some portion of the time they have spent with their grandparents will also find a home in that mix of thoughts and feelings that form their identity, helping them chart their course in life, even for those days when we can only be with them in memory.     

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*BC (before children) and BG (before grandchildren).  The quote comes from the late D. Keith Robb, a classmate of mine at theological school who, like me, was a parish pastor in the mid 1970s.