What Love So Deep As Grandparental Love? Poem by Lynn W. Petty

To Our Beloved Grandchildren Ashley and Chelsea

There is the privilege of contribution to a child's
Development that only grandparents can provide.
There is the rounding out of old age, the last shaping of life,
That only grandchildren can sculpt.
There is a love of deeper meaning that expands between
Grandparents and grandchildren.

When my son spoke "divorce" the word hissed
Like a striking snake.
I could feel the venom of its meaning course my veins:
Fear, anger, pain of separation, taking with her the intimacy
Of being, by the distance of domicile.

No kitchen cooking smells on holidays.
No sound of family on the front porch.
No magnolia blossom faces open, pure, with petal lips
All puckered for a kiss.
From where we sit, each at table's end, vacancy
Of soul fills empty chairs where children would have gathered
On holidays.
We, the grandparents, sit alone,
Enveloped in the heavy sound of silence.