Grandparents can have a deeply felt impact on their grandkids, long after they are gone, can't they?
This is a photo of my Grandpop, John J. Maguire, helping me when I was but a wee pup...his impact on me lasted waaaay beyond the visits we had together over the years.
From his point of view, I'm certain I was just another grandkid...one of many...but from MY point of view, Grandpop was all I could hope for. Smart, funny, very successful and gloriously bald. (much later the appreciation was added...)
As Grandpop made a deep and lasting impression on me in the 50's and 60's...and I was even able to introduce him on his deathbed to my fiancee in the summer of 1977...I began to think over the weekend of how proud Barrack Obama's grandfolks must be of him. For a couple seconds, forget about politics, forget about the sour economy...even forget about the mocking that conservatives make of him (which grieves me).
Here's a guy who beat several US Senators, a former First Lady and the party influence(s) of her husband, an ex-President to win his Party's nomination to the Presidency.
And he never had a Dad to help him get there. Wow. It's pretty amazing. Grandparents? Yep.
And he had a belief that all of us are able in America to achieve anything we set our mind upon.
That's the type of hope we need to give to all of us, isn't it? Audacity of hope? No.
Wonderful hope...from others to us...from us to our grandkids and others.
Den
PS: And this past January, I became a grandfather. I took the title "Grandpop"....wonder why?
(He's a precious little guy...and he's able to do anything in the world...if he believes it is possible.)
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