Guest Post: Annette

My Fantasy Visit With Grandkids

(Annette Petrick is a blogger and writer/presenter of a daily 90-second radio show. She tells stories about life, love, gratitude and sometimes, about the way things were. Here, she muses about how she envisions a vacation visit from her grandchildren.

I remember riding on the train – backwards. It made me dizzy. My grandmother would pick me up in Brooklyn, New York and we’d take the train to her home in Northeast Pennsylvania. She would keep me for a couple of weeks, or a month, and then take me back to my parents. I loved those visits.

I expected I’d be doing the same thing with my grandkids when the time came. But that’s never happened. They’re far away. They’re busy. They have plans. I have plans. And somehow, the opportunity never presents itself.

My granddaughters have never poked through my jewelry box or worn my opera length pearls. They have not ransacked my hat boxes and posed in my old Easter bonnets or waddled about in my high heeled shoes.

I wonder what it would take for me to get one of them under my roof for a week or two. Nothing short of kidnapping, I imagine.

Would they like it? Would they want to hear the story of how an Asian craftsman took years to carve this ivory tusk? Would they serve tea in the same teacups from which their great grandparents sipped? Would they enjoy looking through old photos and learning about relatives they have never met?

Or would they sit in my parlor playing video games or texting friends at home. Would the visit show how much I love them? Or bore them to tears? Guess I’ll never know.

Visit Annette Petrick’s blog at www.considerthisradioshow.com.