Maybe it is being the child of older parents, maybe it is because the memories were not necessarily good ones, but regardless of the reason, there are more holes than story when I think about my parents and their lives before marriage, before children.

I thought about that this week when I spent time with family and, in every instance, realized how little we knew about the past and how sad it was that there was no one left to ask. I thought about it as we spent a wonderful week with two of our grandchildren, one just turned 11 and other about to be 9.

Our first travel vacation with the kids was one I planned to highlight the sights and sounds of my youth and to give them a chance to get acquainted with family that they really don’t know. My granddaughter said, at one point, that the trip was “all about me” and, although I might argue the trip was “all about them,” in some ways she was right.

I wanted the kids to see the things that stir memories for me. I wanted them to experience a ride on the historic carousel, to walk out on the pier into Lake Ontario. I wanted them to eat my favorite foods, to see the house where I grew up, to share some parts of me in ways I never had about my parents, and certainly not my grandparents.

When we were young, my father often talked about his mother, who died when I was an infant and before my brother was born. He was clearly a devoted son and he would tell us how much she “would have loved you.” My only living grandparent was deep in her 80’s in my childhood. Although she understood English, her conversations with me were limited to a few phrases and, in truth, I worked hard to avoid being alone in a room with her.

I so wanted my children to know their grandparents but that, for the most part, was not the case for them either. My parents were gone either before the boys were born, or when they were very young, and they have no recollection of them. They had a relationship with their other grandmother but not one that was especially meaningful.

So here we are, blessed with ten amazing grandchildren and blessed with the ability to spend time, connect, keep up with them. We don’t have the relationship we’d like with each of them, geography and family complexity being what it is, but where we have the ability, it is our priority.

When these children grow up, I want them to be able to say “remember the time that . . .” I want them to have some sense of their roots and their parent’s roots. I want them to remember groaning at “Grandpa jokes” and shaking their heads remembering my frequent journeys into silliness. I want them to know how well and truly they are loved. I hope that they will know how much they have always filled my full heart.