My Precious Granddaughter

This is my 100^th Hub! I never thought I would hang in here this long, but I really like HubPages, so here I am. Since it is my 100^th, I’ve decided not to write a serious article but something positive that is close to my heart, which is my love for my granddaughter, April. She is a sweetheart, petite, pretty as a natural blond with blue eyes, and always gentle.

April will graduate from high school in a couple of months, and it seems like the time has just flown by. She has wanted to be a teacher since she was very young, despite her father (a computer programmer) trying to talk her into finding a more lucrative job. She has her mind set. She is in the accelerated program and will graduate high school with some college credits. She studies hard and makes great grades. She’s a serious minded girl, but yet still silly as teenagers often are. She has girl friends and has been dating for a couple of years.

She has a boyfriend now that she’s been seeing for about five months. She picks boyfriends carefully and has only had two others. This young man seems to adore her and she him. She likes him because he’s smart and fun. He has college scholarships, and he is close to his family. I believe she is his first girlfriend. She says jokingly that she "likes to date smart boys with a future that haven’t dated before so she can train them.” I guess she’s not overbearing because they seem to stick around

A Granddaughter is so special

She will fill your life with love

Like a rainbow made with sunshine

When rain falls from above

Precious memories she will give you

that last throughout your life.

My son has always had custody of her and her brother since before the divorce. He was a Ranger in the Army for 8 years and had to quit to raise these children. April was about 2 years old at that time. Her mom was a flake, and that’s putting it nicely. April was born with Amblyopia, also known as Lazy Eye.

She had surgery on her eye when she was a baby, always wore glasses and went through years of special eye drops and eye patching. Fortunately, now it is barely noticeable. One reason she didn’t respond as well as she should have to the surgery was her mom wouldn’t put the eye drops in because they made her cry.

The other treatments through the years were successful, but she didn’t like to play any sports. She could only see out of one eye most of the time so she couldn’t hit the baseball, or really compete well in any sport.

When my son first separated he and the children came to live with me. I was also divorced, so it worked out well. I have all those precious memories we get when we raise our children. She loved ice cream but couldn’t pronounce it well, so she used to look at me say "hice cream"? Hice cream? She was a typical toddler in every way other than the eye problem. She loved books, stuffed animals, and all little girl toys. My son worked and completed his college degree during this time. My son remarried about 3 years ago and April has a good stepmother

She recently called me and asked if I would help her with a school assignment. She lives three hours away, so this was over the phone. Of course, I said yes. She said she had to interview someone over 50 years of age and she just needed to ask me a few questions. Forty-five minutes later I felt like I had taken a test! The questions were asked covering a decade at a time. There were more than a few questions, and I’m glad there weren’t any more decades to talk about. She showed me the paper when she came to visit for my birthday and she got a 100%.

It started with questions about my earliest memories, and I had to describe myself. There were questions about my school and social life. It went decade by decade asking about me intellectually, emotionally and so forth. She wanted to know my greatest joys and heartaches, financially, strengths and weaknesses, illness, hobbies and then I was supposed to describe myself in five years. Did I have regrets? Of course, you don’t get this old without a few. She asked what I would do if I won the lottery.

She wanted to know what I wanted people to remember about me and my first thought was my love of my family. She wanted to know what I thought was society’s view on the elderly and what was my greatest fear. I had to name three adjectives describing myself, which I stated were loving, optimistic and friendly. I could probably have thought up some better answers with more time but by now my brain was fried by now.

I read her paper and was surprised by some of what she wrote. She covered all the basics from school age through marriages and my children. She described my life today very well. She stated that my legacy to my children will be the genealogy research I do that can be passed down through the generations. I want to be remembered for all the good times I spent with my family and my dedication to them.

She wrote, “The advice she gave to me at the end of the interview is something she’s been telling me for such a long time: education first, then marriage. And when I do get married, I should make sure that he treats his own family well. She also told me that communication is very important to a happy marriage.”

Then she wrote, “My grandmother is probably one of the most influential people in my life. Not only was she a huge part of childhood growing up, but she is overall an amazing person. Despite all the hardships she’s been through, she managed to raise three happy sons and she can always find a reason to smile.” I was smiling with tears in my eye when I read the paper. It means so much to me for her to feel that way as I have loved her dearly all her life.