Decisions, as Grandma Saw Them

One day I asked grandma if I could do something and she responded by telling me to ask my grandfather if I could.  After a time, I realized that this was a pattern with her whenever I asked permission to do certain things, and I asked her why she couldn’t give permission.

She just turned to me with a big smile upon her face and then proceeded to wipe her hands on the apron she was wearing at the time.  I knew that this was her way of taking a minute or two to gather her thoughts for the answer she was about to give to my question. Then she sat down and said,

“ Boy, it isn’t because I don’t have the authority to give you permission to do something.  It is because of what your grandfather and I learned about being parents from raising your father and his brothers and sisters.  Parenthood is a vocation and one where no man and woman can be taught how to proceed in the raising of children to adulthood.  It is, essentially, a time of trial and error throughout.  That is because each of us are individuals and we need to be raised as individuals.

One of the first things that we learned is that I would give permission at times when your grandfather would have denied permission and there would be times that your grandfather would give permission when I would have denied permission.   Your father, being the oldest, learned this quickly and knew who to ask when he wanted something.  And I’ll admit this caused fights between your grandfather and myself.

After a time I learned to trust your grandfather in the decisions he made for the kids and I found out that he was usually right in those decisions.  Now, that doesn’t mean he was always right but I learned something else when he was wrong.  I learned he had enough confidence in his decisions so as to correct any bad decisions he made if it could be corrected. 

You will very seldom hear him apologize when he makes a bad decision and that is because he knows he is not perfect and will not always make the right decision the first time.  He always considered it a learning experience thus doesn’t feel guilty for it.  And this is what most people do not understand about your grandfather when they expect him to apologize and he doesn’t.

I, on the other hand, would always feel bad when I made a foolish decision and your grandfather chastised me many a time when I would apologize.  And when I finally got around to it and asked him why he would always ask if I learned anything from it.  And when I said yes then he would only smile and tell me that no apology was necessary then.

That was when I realized that life is all about learning and that learning is to be a positive part of our lives.  So, why should we imperfect human beings apologize for the positive experiences in our lives?  We should celebrate them as we do when anything positive happens.  Only those who cannot see the positive but only see the negatives of what we do demand apologies from those we love and trust.”

With these words said she got up and went back to doing what she had started to do before I interrupted her and left me to ponder over the value of her words.