When Bob was young, he used to love to go to Montana to visit his grandmother. He would go almost every summer. He would help out on the ranch, milking cows, collecting eggs, feeding the stock, and anything else they were doing on the ranch. It was a young boy’s dream summer. Bob loved spending time with his grandma.
To a boy, getting to go spend part of his summer with his grandma was like winning the lottery. Grandmas are notorious for spoiling their grandchildren, even when they have them do chores. It just doesn’t seem like the same thing when it is for your grandma. Grandmas have a way of making chores fun, or maybe it’s just that when the chores are for your parents, it seems boring. Probably mostly because it is for your parents, right.
Bob never outgrew his love for spending time at his grandma’s ranch. As soon as he was old enough, he started going there on his own. Grandma loved having him visit. He even brought his friend Paul with him the last visit before Bob and I were married. He was so proud of his grandma.
After we were married, we continued the tradition of going to visit Grandma on a regular basis. She was so full of life. I quickly learned that Grandma had a way of making everyone feel special. She was so loving, and so welcoming. We went to visit her every summer. Our girls loved going, and Grandpa added to the draw that the ranch held, with his adventurous ways. We just never got tired of being there. They made it so interesting, and they really didn’t do anything so special. They were just themselves, and it was such a different world from what we were used to that we craved it at least once a year.
Grandma and Grandpa are both gone now and we haven’t seen the old ranch house in a long time, but they live on in my memories, as well as Bob’s. In my mind I can still picture the fun times we had out there. Our girls chasing chickens, and riding the horses. And while I wasn’t there at the time, my mind can dream up a picture of a little 10 year old boy spending the summer with his grandparents pretending to be a cowboy and helping with chores that were somehow fun when you did them for Grandma.
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