Last winter, after being out of town for several months, we were surprised when one of our friends\u2014a single man in his sixties\u2014turned up with a six-week-old infant in tow, packing her around in a baby carrier.\u00a0 The child turned out to be his granddaughter.\u00a0 The mother, who had used drugs during her pregnancy, had abandoned her addicted newborn in the hospital.<\/p>\n
Grandpa stepped up.\u00a0 Once the baby made it through withdrawal, he took her home.\u00a0 When we saw him, the baby was fine as frogs\u2019 hair. \u00a0Our friend?\u00a0 Not so much.\u00a0 He had dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep.\u00a0 He was struggling to find child care so he could keep on working.\u00a0 Eventually, his former wife, who is not the child\u2019s biological grandmother, also stepped into the breach.\u00a0 Between them, they have managed to care for this now sparkly-eyed, crawling little tyke. Despite her troubled entry into the world, that little girl is developing normally and growing up in a loving and stable if unconventional home.<\/p>\n
This past week, Grandpa had a day to himself and took his three year-old car to the dealership where he originally bought it for servicing.\u00a0 The owner, someone with whom Grandpa had had other business dealings, came through the service room waiting room and inquired how Grandpa was doing.\u00a0 Sometimes the question, \u201cHow\u2019s it going?\u201d is a cursory inquiry at best with no need for a comprehensive response.\u00a0 This time, Grandpa was at a low ebb and said, \u201cDo you really want to know?\u201d<\/p>\n
The dealer did want to know, and so Grandpa told him\u2014the whole difficult story, complete with comprehensive iPhone photo documentation of the journey, up to and including a brand new crib. The dealer left the room at the end of the story.\u00a0 Some time later the service manager came to the waiting room and told Grandpa his car was ready.\u00a0 Except when he went outside, his car looked different.\u00a0 Same color; same model; different year and wearing a brand new\u00a0 temporary license tag.<\/p>\n
It turned out, the dealer had just done a trade in.\u00a0 \u201cThe payments will stay the same as on your old contract,\u201d the dealer told Grandpa.\u00a0 \u201cWhen you finish paying off the old car, the new one will be paid for\u2014with 97,000 fewer miles.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not naming names today because neither of those terrific men would want me to use them.\u00a0 As you can see, there are two heroes in this story\u2014two unsung heroes who are doing the right thing for no other reason than because it\u2019s the right thing to do.\u00a0 They\u2019re not asking for media applause or attention.\u00a0 They\u2019re not going around bragging about their good deeds; they\u2019re just DOING them!<\/p>\n
But be advised, the two unassuming heroes mentioned here aren\u2019t alone by any means. All over the country, there are countless other grandparents who have put plans for their own golden years on hold in order to care for and raise the neglected children of their troubled offspring.\u00a0 And along the way, there are other members of communities who, once aware of what’s going on, have reached out to lend a helping hand, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in large ones.<\/p>\n
All these selfless people\u2014every single one of them–have my utmost gratitude and respect because, without the love and supreme effort of those caring grandparents, vast numbers of innocent little kids wouldn\u2019t have a chance in hell.<\/p>\n
Siri tells me that Grandparents Day will be celebrated on September 7.\u00a0 I maintain that\u2019s dead wrong.<\/p>\n
Grandparents like Grandpa should be celebrated every single day of the year.<\/p>\n
No exceptions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last winter, after being out of town for several months, we were surprised when one of our friends\u2014a single man in his sixties\u2014turned up with a six-week-old infant in tow, packing her around in a baby carrier.\u00a0 The child turned out to be his granddaughter.\u00a0 The mother, who had used drugs during her pregnancy, had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-mk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1385,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions\/1385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}