Image Source: Photo by Paula Schmidt: https://www.pexels.com/photo/wooden-chair-on-a-white-wall-studio-963486/

Note: All characters in this real-life story will be kept confidential to protect the personal identity of the said individuals mentioned. 

I must admit, even though I have great childhood memories, the one thing missing in my life was building a closeness with my maternal grandfather, who lived in Canada for the entirety of his life. I spent very little time with my maternal grandfather, and also I lost my paternal grandfather when I was 1 year old, so I never got to spend time with him as well. 

This emptiness I felt without having a meaningful connection with my maternal grandfather, who passed away in a foreign country, and also I never could attend his funeral as well. By meaningful connection I mean I spent very little time with my maternal grandfather, and this left lots and lots of emptiness in my life even though luckily for me I have always had the company of both of my parents, who have given me lots of love and care. 

However, being through this experience of emptiness, I observed another family in which I saw a close connection of love and companionship between a young man and his maternal grandfather. I observed they had little communication barriers between them, and their love of a grandfather/grandson relationship really filled the void I felt in my life, and I really felt happiness and wholesomeness seeing their thriving relationship. 

Right now this young man's maternal grandfather is eighty-plus years old and has lost his wife. This old man has lost his vision and had an operation to remove one of his eyes because of some infection, which could be deadly for him by causing issues with his brain. 

The connection between this young man and his maternal grandfather is pretty solid still because, after my personal observation, this young man can understand what his maternal grandfather is going through right now, not only in terms of trying to survive his old age and bad health but also in how he cares for and loves his children so much. Below are the things I observed after communicating with this young man about his maternal grandfather: 

1. The old man, even with his current condition, still deeply cares for all of his children and caters to all of their needs and wants. Also, he still tries to keep in touch with all of them, whether they are his children or even grandchildren. 

2. Even with his old age, the old man tries to keep himself away from isolation and tries to reach social gatherings so he can be a part of the communities he deeply cares for. 

3. This young man still spends time with his maternal grandfather by visiting him often and listening to him and tries to keep himself up-to-date with his daily life routine and also keeps a close ear to what emotions he wants to communicate.

4. The old man deeply trusts his grandson from his daughter and never holds back on any thoughts of his while communicating with him, meaning he just says whatever is in his heart without any confidentiality with him, which is a true symbol of love between a grandfather and his grandson. 

5. The young man often tells stories about the time spent with his maternal grandfather and remembers the lessons he learned from the quality time he spent with him. Not only does he remember these important life lessons, but he has also made a commitment in his life to follow through with these teachings, as somehow this maternal grandfather of his is his role model. 

Now I do not want to invade anyone's privacy in case the young man reads this article and these are just my observations as a complete outsider, but the reason I am expressing and sharing this story over here is like I said earlier, there is an empty hole in my life that I never got to experience quality wholesome time spent with any of my grandfathers from both my father's and mother's sides. I hope I expressed my observation without crossing any boundaries, and I sincerely apologize if I made any mistake in my judgements and also hurt anyone's feelings. 

This article was originally published on medium

Image source: Photo by Paula Schmidt: https://www.pexels.com/photo/wooden-chair-on-a-white-wall-studio-963486/