This is asking a lot since they’ve all crossed over but if I could send out the invite and have them show up, it would be both sets of my grandparents.
To not only have a visit and catch up with them would be amazing, but also to have them all in the same room again would be a thrill. I’m not really sure what the consensus is on maternal and paternal grandparents actually knowing each other and getting along but for me as a kid it was exciting when they got together but also happened in rare moments.
My mom’s parents were Albertans the majority of their life but we lived two provinces away, in Manitoba. We were lucky if we saw them twice a year. My dad’s parents lived very close to us, the next yard down the road, maybe a football field’s distance away. Growing up we saw them nearly everyday.
I believe their core values were very much the same yet my two sets of grandparents couldn’t have been more different. Gramma and Grampa Smith, my mom’s parents, were soft, quiet and gentle people. My grampa served in WWII and in that time didn’t see my gramma for three years. When he returned they had two daughters and ran a convenience store in Calgary, AB.
They lived simply yet they loved to travel. They went to church on Sundays and had a pretty big social circle.
My dad’s parents, Gramma and Grampa Antichow, were farmers, and my gramma, a bit of a tomboy. She used to tell us how she could keep up with any boy playing ball and riding horses as a kid. She was a bit of a daredevil and there was nothing she wouldn’t try.
Case in point, when she was in her 60’s my uncle brought a motorcycle to her place and of course she had to get on it and try it out and she crashed it going down a hill and broke her leg.
My friends used to laugh when I was a kid about how my gramma wore acid washed jeans like we all did. She was a stark contrast to Gramma Smith whose wardrobe was consistently slacks, a blouse with a cardigan over top. No matter what the weather, no matter how hot it was. She was the epitome of prim and proper. She would not be caught dead riding a motorcycle or a horse, or wearing acid washed jeans.
I recall several occasions as a kid, when my Gramma and Grampa Antichow would have Gramma and Grampa Smith over for coffee when they were around for one of their annual visits from Alberta. Of course I had to be there. Like an investigative reporter to get the scoop. How would it go, what would they talk about?
I remember thinking, even as a kid, I hope my Gramma Antichow isn’t going to blurt out something uncooth in front of Gramma Smith. Yeow, we don’t want that to happen. But it was all very cordial and proper. Even if they had lived near each other, I don’t think they would have been friends, per se. They were just too different.
My Gramma Antichow used to say how she liked to tease Grampa Smith, of course she would. He liked to laugh but was pretty serious by outward appearances. He didn’t curse or smoke and rarely had a drink. I’m sure Gramma A’s jokes bordered on crude in his eyes.
If I could sit down with all four of them again, just one time, I would soak in every second. I would take pictures and maybe even record some of it. And I hope my cooking would be impressive enough.
bloom.planted.north 
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