My mother sometime opens up & talks of her hurt at losing her father in her early thirties, at an age where her friends were coming to terms with losing their grandparents. My mothers grandparents have been gone for decades, except Nana Campbell who held on until the ripe old age of 97, but spent the last 10 years lost in the world of Alzheimer's so for us, and especially for Gramps, she was gone years ago.
You see Gramps lived a whole life time before he started his family with my Nan. He was 39 when my Uncle was born, and 43 when my mum was born. Mums grandparents were old enough to be her Great Grand Parents, and her Grandfathers sadly died early coming out of a tough post WWII era....
When my mother had me so young, the pattern was repeated; my Gramps was a father figure to me, from my birth, but he was old enough to be my Great Grandfather.
Gramps' age was never really a 'thing', when I was small I just assumed that everyone's granddad was like mine - because he didn't seem old to me. I remember him teaching me how to ride a bike in the visitors car park of the caravan park they lived in, and him taking me for scooter rides around the caravan park at Christmas time to look at the lights the guests & residents had put up.
He blew up those crazy shaped balloons at my 3rd birthday party; actually he blew up balloons at almost every birthday party thanks to mums phobia, and him and Nan would come over to our place every Easter Sunday morning wearing bunny ears and carrying baskets of eggs.
I got to spend a lot of my early childhood years with them. They were years my Gramps did not get to spend with his own children as he had been busy working when they were young. The presence of the age gap for Gramps and his own children at times made it difficult for him to bond with them, especially as teenagers. But as a young child and with him in the role of Grandfather, none of that was an issue with us. He was wiser & had the time to share that wisdom with me. He had the time to do the things a dad would normally want do with their child.
There were a few other male influences in my life, such as my Uncle and a couple of mutual friends of my mother and my uncle, who took me under their wing in a positive way, and their families did too. I gained another Grandmother. Grandma Broccoli who has been in my life for 18 years.
I could spend a lot of time wondering "why me?" Why didn't I have a dad like other children?
But it never really was a negative experience for me because I had my Gramps to mostly fill that spot. I had friends through the years who also had no dad, or their dad had left, or worse they were dealing with a horrible step father. I listened to the stories of what they went through. I've had my experiences there too.
But my Gramps was above and beyond all of that. God put that man in my life for a reason. I can see that. I may not even yet fully realise why he was who he was to me and for me. But I knew him. I loved him. He was my first visitor after I was born & I was one of his last visitors before he passed. And together my mother and I lost our Father. God has given us that bond that will hold strong through time.
My mother had me young and sometimes suffered for it. Looking back neither of us would want to change that. Was it always meant to be that way? Maybe. But we as people do make our own decisions and God protects and blesses those decisions, even if they were not the blessing He had planned for us, He makes a new plan based on our choices.
Gramps never saw me graduate high school, he will never walk me down the aisle or see me get married. He was not a man of great faith as so many other Granddads have been for their Grandchildren but that was not the role God picked out for him. There is so much of my life, special moments in my life that Gramps did share & I can see Gods hand in that.
Some children only meet their Grandparents once or twice, some never.
Because I was born exactly when I was, I got to spend 15 wonderful years with my Gramps, before he sadly passed in 2009; before my Uncle had even met his wife & started his own family.
God has blessed me. He blessed me with this special man before He even knew me.
Gordon Campbell
14 Nov 1933 - 12 Feb 2009
