Thursday, May 26, 2005

Respect your elders

I love my grandparents. My mom's parent's both passed away a while ago, before I was old enough to really appreciate them (that, and whenever we visited them we were also visiting a dairy farm, with acres of farm land, heavy machinery, hay lofts, apple orchards, cows; all of which tended to be more exciting to a 14 year old boy than listening to my parents talk to my grandparents in english/dutch/frisian). However, my grandfather, Jelle Dykstra, spent a good chunk of time writing his memoirs, which included a good deal of family history. My mom typed it out, and my Uncle Nick was kind enough to translate it into English, and edit it. Reading it really made me appreciate my family heritage a lot more, and made me realize a bit more of the sacrifices that were made by an immigrant family. My grandfather was a godly man, and whenever he spoke about my grandmother, he spoke very highly of her, and often quoted proverbs 31.
My dad's parent's live in a retirement home in Brampton, called Holland Christian Homes. They love it there. There's a woodshop that all the guys there have brought in their old tools too, so my grandfather is forever building things, and doing wood carvings, and making gifts. I've stopped in a few times on my own when I've been in the area in the past couple of years (usually something involving the airport), and it's been great, sitting down just the three of us.
Well, a few weeks ago was my grandmother's birthday, and I forgot to call her. I could make excuses; I stayed up the night before helping run the 30 hr famine... but really, I forgot.
The kicker is that she kept a list of who called!
My brother was even at their apartment on her birthday and when he found out she was keeping a list of who called he went to the other room and called her from his cell phone. Now, I'm typically a competitive person, so this bugs me; that he's on the 'list' and I'm not. I'm sure I'll find out the consequences of this next Christmas. I need to do something to remedy this situation. I'm open to suggestions.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

you could call her on the same day number but in a wrong month. or send her flowers and say sorry I forgot. the second one is a little less weaselly

4:47 p.m.  

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