Yesterday our family went to see my 83 year old grandmother, who we’ve always lovingly called Nana. She lives south of us in the rural town of Mossyrock, Washington. You can see some of her handiwork in the plants, trees and shrubbery of this home:

That’s a picture of the home I grew up in which I wrote about last year in Going Home. Nana and I talked about many good times through the years and one thing I’d noticed since the last time I’d seen her is her hearing has deteriorated. These days you have to sit or stand really close to her, speak loudly, clearly and deliberately for her to be able to hear what you’re saying.

This got me thinking of what my hearing will be like when I’m 83 and it probably won’t be good no thanks to the loud music I listened to without protection as a kid. I’m much smarter about important details in life like that these days and took ear protection to the Metallica concert in Key arena back in 2004. However, my son and I didn’t take ear protection to Ozzfest last year although we were outside and away from the stage. Outside concerts aren’t usuallly as bad for your hearing as inside ones, but we still should have had ear protection just in case.

We drove down to Mayfield Lake together to a private dock area and the kids played on an old rope swing. Our youngest teen was a bit nervous about swinging on the rope at first but our middle child was Tarzan.

We then went back to Nana’s house and talked some more about the past. We got into the war a bit which is where my Grandfather (”Papa”) flew B-17 bomber missions during World War II. I don’t think I could ever tire of hearing those stories. Nana misses Papa who died a few years back. He had his ashes scattered by a tree at one of their favorite fishing spots. Nana showed me the picture of the spot on her refrigerator.

“I’ll be joining Papa there someday.”

At some point the conversation turned to how families are more fragmented these days. My sister who lives up in Canada hasn’t talked to Nana in years. I’m hoping the last time wasn’t when I called her to tell her about Papa passing away. I’m going to give her a call later today and ask her to call Nana. Hopefully I can reach her and she’ll call. My sister seemed very saddened that she didn’t get a chance to talk to Papa before he died. You really never know with family — with friend, with anyone really — when the last time you will see or talk to them will be.

From a historical perspective, Nana went through the depression, WWII (she worked as a telephone operator), the 50’s, 60s and Vietnam, 70s and gas crunch. She’s seen a lot of history. In her opinion the world isn’t a better place today than it was in the old days. I’m not sure I agree completely with that one, but I do agree that families aren’t as close on the whole as they once were.

How often do you see and/or talk to your extended family (grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc)? How often do you see your brothers, sisters, mom and dad? We saw my dad last in Spring training and he took our whole family out to see the Mariners play in Peoria.

Too many two parent or single parent working families these days. I don’t think it’s because parents want to be away from their children and let videogames, television and the internet/computers raise them, it’s a matter of necessity. The cost of everything has become more expensive. Heck, our grocery bill for a family of five is over $800/month alone. Teenager boys can dismantle full cupboards.

In our family, we feel pretty fortunate and grateful to be able to spend so much time with our family. Every day either my wife or I is home with the children and if not our office is only a block away. We do not take enough time to see uncles and aunts and even Nana who only lives a little over an hour’s drive away. We don’t even visit my sister’s family in Canada (about 2 1/2 hours away) very often. I haven’t seen my youngest uncle in years and he lives about 30 minutes away. My middle uncle is President of a bank chain here in Washington and I haven’t seen him in years either. His youngest daughter just got married in Hawaii and there is going to be a reception next month.

Nana says she kept the letters from Papa to his mother during WWII and someday those will be shared with the rest of the family. Those boys didn’t know if they’d be coming home. A lot of them didn’t.

Sunday is a great day to check in, at least by telephone, with family and see how they are doing.

In the old days what I’m writing here would likely have been written in ink on paper and stored away in a diary. Maybe only a half dozen people or so would ever see or read it this close to real time. All of them most likely close family. There were no blogs or RSS feeds, no email, no internet, no computers, but there was one much more important thing.

Families.

• Going home
• My sister’s new Media Center PC isn’t hooked up to their TV
• Huh? What? I can’t hear you, Apple
• Family subaccounts for single Xbox Live account would be useful
• Our TV D-day has arrived
• 100+ days without TV and loving it