Grandpa and Grandma

When I was a little kid we lived in Iowa. There were generations of family there on both my parents sides. My paternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Germany and settled there and raised a family. The six years that we lived there were probably the best of my whole life and I really miss those days. I never saw my grandma wear pants one single time. She always wore dresses and aprons and most days she was barefoot or wore a pair of slippers. My grandpa rolled his own cigarettes and worked doing concrete and masonry, i believe. They had a big square table in their kitchen and it was always full at dinner time, which was the noon meal. The youngest grandchild sat to the left of my grandpa and a meal never passed that he didn't manage to somehow over-pass the butter to someone and stick their finger in it.

In their backyard was the biggest, most beautiful garden I've ever seen and planted along the back row was rhubarb, from one end to the other. Us grandkids would go out with a small paring knife and whack off a piece of rhubarb anytime we were at their house during the summer. We would cut the leaf off into the burn barrel and take the rhubarb in the house to wash it off. Then we would grab a cup of sugar and sit and dip that rhubarb into the sugar and munch away. Oh, it was SO good. It's one of those memories that will never fade. It's one of the reasons I want to plant rhubarb in my someday-to-be garden.

I miss my grandma and grandpa so much. I wish that they had lived to know my children. I wish that I could sit and talk with them and find out more about their lives when they were younger. I wish that they could give me advice. I wish that I could curl up next to them again in one of their chairs and rock the cares of the world away. Oh, how I miss them.