Maybe I was one of the fortunate ones. My childhood to me seemed very idyllic.
Very early on, I loved to go on vacation. Going on vacation to me meant that we would get to see my grandparents—Grandma & Grandpa Cambre, and Grandma Anderson. They lived in the same little town of 5,000 in SW Iowa. It really is not until this moment that I am grasping how fortunate I was for that happenstance. For so many families, the members are flung far and wide. But the core of my family lay in SW Iowa. And when you push on that core, all four of my grandparents came from Illinois. How amazing is that? I knew relatives there as well. My Grandpa Cambre’s brother lived out his life in Illinois. My Grandma Cambre was an only child. My Grandfather Anderson’s siblings remained in Illinois, and my Grandmother Anderson’s two brothers remained in Illinois, while her sister eventually moved with her own family to Denver.
But when we went to SW Iowa, we stayed with the Cambre’s. I loved my Grandfather Cambre. He was a mysterious man to me, a witty man, a man with a smile.
I can remember my sister and I touching his bald head and asking him if that hurt.
Well, no, it did not. He said it was like touching the skin of our own arm. We could not understand that.
In a vague way, I knew that my Grandfather was my Dad’s father, but I had a hard time putting that together.
Grandpa died when I was 10 years old. We were actually at his house when he died in the hospital, but no one told me. I knew that when I came down the stairs for breakfast, everyone seemed a little sullen at the table, but it wasn’t until I went to Grandma Anderson’s house later on that morning that I discovered why. My sister and I got into some kind of a verbal fight, and my grandmother said we shouldn’t fight on such a day like this.
I asked, "What do you mean? What is so different about today?"
She said, "This is the day that your Grandfather has died."
I said, "WHAT? Grandpa is DEAD? Why didn’t anyone tell me?" I was shocked, stunned, blown away. I could not believe it. I did not know he was that ill.
47 years later my Dad died. And now I am Grandpa Cambre.
It is hard for me to grasp this. I am to my grandsons what Grandpa was to me.
But wait . . . Grandpa was old. And he walked with a cane. He had had infantile poliomyelitis. But now I am to the family what he was 50 years ago.
I grew up in a world that seemed impervious to change. What an illusion. I now grasp that in so many ways, change is the name of the game.