We all have 4 grandparents, two on our mother's side and 2 on our father's side. Many get to know all of them, but many don't get to know any of them. Just as some people have 6 grandparents, such is the case of those who have stepparents, like me.
I feel like I'm disrespecting my dad by calling him that, so I'll call him # 1 dad since he's the one I bear the last name from and he raised me as a daughter. And I'll call the biological dad # 2 dad, since I haven't heard from him since I was 12 years old.
Who else I had contact and communication with was with my grandparents on my mother's side, since they lived close to my mother. The grandparents on my dad's # 1 side lived in another state, they were land laborers and they never had time to visit anyone. Once a year my # 1 dad would take us to visit them and they were unforgettable days. They made big meals as other brothers of my # 1 dad got together, so there were a lot of people.
I never met my # 2 dad's grandparents, but it was a dream that stayed in my heart since my # 2 dad was Arab, Lebanon, so I kept hoping to meet them so they could show me their culture and see your dresses. I love Arab dance although I don't know how to dance it, I like their costumes, I know that they meet a lot with their friends to eat their tables and talk.
Just a few years ago I gave up the idea of meeting my third family, my Arab grandparents and their culture. I never heard from my biological father (#2) again.
Grandparents are our second parents, so we learn from them too. But mostly we get pampering and pandering, gifts and so on.
Since 11 years I have been in the stage of being a grandmother, 4 beautiful grandchildren, 2 girls and 2 boys. I know firsthand that if you love these beings like your children or more, I was with my daughter in labor pains and in the early mornings in hospitals waiting for my grandchildren to be born. 3 of them live with me in my house. We Latinos have a bad habit of not letting our children go, we are very attached and now that my grandchildren are there and I think if they have to move to another place my heart makes me small.
I hope they learn good values from me, I consent to them, but I also scold them if they do something that I consider is not in line with what is correct.
From my maternal grandmother I learned that you cannot have many children, she had 16. Before, families were large, my mother had 7 children, and I had 3 children. I think that that amount is good to raise children with discipline, values and have control over them.
Some of my uncles fought each other, this is what happens when there are many people living together, parental control is lost, no matter how much they apply punishments so that this does not happen.
I learned that not everything that was good for them is good for you, we have to take some things that we like, test if they work for you and improve them. I used to watch the TV series Lassie, I loved seeing how they raised the boy who owned Lassie and the duties and rules that he had to comply with on the farm. This is how I would have liked to educate my children and more or less I did. I am not the perfect mother or the perfect grandmother, but I try to do my best.
I treasure in my heart a very loving memory of my grandparents and I am blessed to have them with me.
