29 | December | 2025 | Spo-Reflections

60. What do you miss most about your parents or grandparents?

Good! #60 is a proper question to ask your grandparents, as few people remember anything about their great-grandparents and they have only heard about their great-grandparents.*

The main answer to what I miss most about my parents and grandparents is I was a child and had no real responsibilities; they provided everything and provided love and security. Now I am grown up and on my own; I have to earn my own keep and make my own meals. However I will break this down into a meme to list what I miss most about my direct ancestors.

Mother. she was always there and always interested in what I was doing. She adored me and I miss hearing her comforting words I am thinking of you.

Father. His companionship. We never discussed deep matters, he wasn’t like that. However we discussed music and freighters and made the same jokes and did the same banter. This is my first new years eve without him. I miss most our daily phone calls to find out what is happening in his life and what freighters are in the locks.

My maternal grandparents with my mother and my uncle

Maternal grandmother. In her younger days she was the cook of the family. Even simple things like chicken noodle soup and a nice hot cup of tea on a snowy white winter morning tasted marvelous. There are several things I still make and eat that derive from her, but they don’t taste quite the same. Funny how food tasted better in our youth, when it is made for us by someone who loves us.

Maternal grandfather. Some of my best childhood memories are from summers with him on his cabin cruiser, traveling the Great Lakes. Back then they seemed as large and as exotic as the seven seas to 17th century explorers.

Paternal grandmother. Baseball. She loved her baseball which were The Detroit Tigers. I don’t care a tosh for professional sports but for The Tigers. She taught me how to keep score; I think of her whenever I do.

**My paternal grandfather with my father on his left and my uncle Ed on his right**

Paternal grandfather. He died when I was about six years old. So what I know of him is mostly through statements and idioms his children passed along to my generation. What I miss most about him is not having experienced time with him to know him directly.

Please tell me if you are willing to tell me what you miss most about your parents or a certain grandparent.

*We have eight great-grandparents. I know their names and when they were born/when they died but other than facts like these I know little about them. There are photos and some bits of information that somehow managed to make it to my generation – possibly because I asked question #60 to my parents. I know a maternal great-grandmother is responsible for the “S” cookies we make at Christmas time. Below is a photo of my great-grandfather. His portrait hangs in my office. He was well over four feet.