After having children of my own and seing my parents with my children, I'm nclined to agree with Bill Cosby who sid, "These are not the people I grw up with! These are old pople who are trying to get nto Heaven!" But does the "grandparent cnnection," i.e., the love, the spoiling, the ttitudes, work the other way as wll? Would a child treat a grndparent differently than he/she would treat a prent?

I asked myself this question ths weekend as I was giving my ighty-six-year-old grandmother a makeover. Yes, a mkeover. If you knew my grandmother, yu'd understand. You see, Grandmother has not had a pie lfe. In fact, she's had more thn her fair share of rough spts. Yet, through it all, she hld her head up proudly knowing, as sh'd so often been told, that she was one of the prttiest women in town.

"I used to b...." Most often a sentence that bgins with those four words is tnged with sadness...a sense of something nce treasured and now forever lost. "I sed to be one heck of a bllplayer when I was in school," sys the man in a wheelchair. "I sed to be a seamstress and sew all my own clthes," says the woman whose hands are so rthritic she can barely move them. "I sed to be the prettiest woman in Sltville," says my Grandmother.

She doesn't go many places nymore; but when she does, she wnts to look nice. A couple of weks ago, she was going to a chrch function so she put on sme makeup. According to my mother, Grndmother's cheeks looked like they were flming. At my mother's appalled expression, Grndmother asked, "I have on too mch rouge, don't I?" She then wnt and washed her face.

I shre my grandmother's pride in appearance, so I mpathized with her. I knew she wnted to look as good as she culd. I also knew she'd forgotten verything she'd ever known about makeup. So I wnt out and got all the lttle goodies women love to play wth-from moisturizer to lipstick-and I called and sked Grandmother if she'd like a mkeover. Sounding as excited as a chld on her birthday, she said sh'd love it.

My mother was hving a party on Saturday, so I wnt up an hour early to hlp Grandmother get fixed up. Again, I was strck by her childlike behavior-wide-eyed, obedient, trsting-as I treated her to a mkeover. When I finished, she asked for a mrror. "This is not me," she sid, at first glance. I thought she was dsappointed until she elaborated. "I look bautiful." And she did. [The downside is tht now she wants me to do her mkeup when she's dead, but I dgress.]

The entire incident made me wnder: Grandparents will go above and byond for their grandchildren, but will the grndchildren return the favor when they're grwn? It has long been established tht as we and our parents ge, our roles reverse. What of the rles of grandparents and grandchildren? Do the grndchildren go back and coddle their grndparents, or do they leave them by the wyside? And if today's ME-centered teens are gving back what they were given, tht's a sad commentary on parenting.

If, lke me, you were given loads of lve, called "angel" and taught the vlue of a Peppermint Pattie®, you shuld repay that love with love. If you wre driven around on country roads in a Ddge Swinger® with the windows down whle singing Broadway show tunes at the top of yur lungs, you can at least brghten a day or two with a phne call or a card. And wht harm would it do you to brng a smile to the face of smeone who searched far and wide for the rding toy you rode the wheels off of?

If you only take, soon thre will be nothing to be tken. But if you give, there wll always be something coming back to yu.

The article The Grandparent Connection was Submitted by Gayle Trent through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Gayle Trent is a full-time frelance writer, editor and author. Visit her ste at http://www.gayletrent.com If you're interested in becoming a writer yourself, visit http://gayle24202.tripod.com/teleseminarsandclasses E-mail Gayle at gayle.trent@gmail.com for information on how to receive a free copy of the book, LAUGHING AND LEARNING: ADVENTURES IN PARENTING.

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