The “hardest thing” reminded me of something I’ve wondered for a while. I’m 30, and I haven’t had any grandparents for quite a while. This makes it a bit difficult to relate to a friend 15 years older whose grandmother is dying and one my age who is dealing with her grandmother going senile. I know I lost mine young, but I have no idea what’s a typical age to find yourself grandparent-less.
I started life with 3 grandparents: my Dad’s mother died over a year before I was born. My maternal grandmother died of cancer when I was seven. My maternal grandfather died of cancer when I was eighteen. And my paternal grandfather, whom I’d seen no more than a dozen times my entire life because he distanced himself from his children after their mother passed died of old age when I was twenty-three. (my kid brother was 1, 12, and 17 when our grandparents died, so I bet it’s even harder for him to relate to older people talking about their grandmas and grandpas.)
I still miss my maternal grandparent a lot, perhaps mostly because he’s the only one I ever got to really know. Being 18 when I lost the only one I ever had a meaningful relationship with past the second grade has left me with the incorrect sense that grandparents are people you only have until you grow up. The great-grandmother mentioned in the other thread died when I was 18, too.
My paternal grandfather died when my father was 12, and I know very little about him. My paternal grandmother died when I was 4-5ish; I remember she spent some of her last days living with us, with a black and white TV in the room, and a box of chocolates open for us when we came home from school/daycare.
My maternal granfather passed away when I was 15, but it wasn’t a sudden or unexpected death; multiple strokes had made him an invalid and he had been hospitalised for pretty much my whole life. His inability to speak and communicate meant that I never really knew him. That last 6 months was a little touch and go; he actually received his last rights (?) in October, but recovered and finally passed away relatively peacefully in April. That was a dozen or so years ago.
That was the last one that I lost.
I now have my maternal grandmother, and her husband who is my grandfather in all but name. She came very close to dying about 8 years ago, but has made a remarkable come back and doesn’t seem ready to kick the proverbial bucket any time soon. She’s weakening with age (she’s 85 this year) but still lively.
My “step grandfather” is a pack-a-day-smoker at 93 years old, and other than being deaf as a doorknob, he’s remarkably healthy.
I am not looking forward to losing either of them, as they are both quite involved in our family life (especially my grandmother).
3/4 of my husband’s grandparents are still alive, though. They are a few years younger than my grandparents are/would be.
I lost my last grandmother in 1991, when was 32. Her husband died in 1973. I’m not sure when my paternal grandparents died. I believe she was in the mid-'70s and he died in the late '80s. I didn’t see that side of the family after the separation in 1976.
Started with 3.
Lost my maternal grandfather when I was 2.5
Lost my maternal grandmother when I was 14.
Lost my paternal grandmother when I was 16.
Also lost my only “great”, my (step)great-grandfather, when I was 10, my mother when I was 11, and my father when i was 19. Moral of this post: If you want to live a long life, make sure we are not kin.
I wasn’t yet a twinkle in my dad’s eye when the last of them died. I feel cheated - especially when I think about my maternal grandparents, who sound like they were very interesting people indeed. Grandfather was an electronics genius (in a 1940s kind of way) who was largely responsible for introducing operator-free long distance telephony to Australia, after a stint as an officer in the Australian Army (in signalling, natch) in WWII. In 1956, he wished my mum a happy 21st FROM A CAR PHONE. He was that kinda guy. Grandmother was a wild gal. They ended up running a series of wild pubs. Dad’s parents sound OK, but kinda dour and presbyterian. In any event, I feel I wuz robbed.
My paternal grandfather died 6 months before I was born. My maternal and paternal grandmothers when I was 7 (within a week of each other in fact), and my maternal granfather when I was 25.
I barely started with all four. My maternal grandmother died about a month after I was born, on Christmas Day 1982.
My paternal grandfather died in 1990 (he was in his late 70’s.) I wish I could have been old enough to really know him better. He was a B-17 pilot in WWII, was shot down and was a POW for the last few months of the war. In the early 80’s, when I as maybe 1 or 2, he lost his right hand in a fireworks accident. Since then, he had a metal hook in place of his right hand that he could open and close with his bicep muscle. He actually didn’t mind it that much because he easily learned ti write with his left hand, and could still easily hold is corn-cob pipe with the hook.
My maternal grandfather died at the age of 90 in late 2002. He was the second last of his siblings to die (his sister, my great aunt, is still alive and her 101st birthday is this spring.) His last years in life were marked with severe dementia. It was very hard on my family when our grandfather/father no longer recognized us and when we had to move him out of his home into a care facility. He never got to the point of losing much of his physical faculties, though. Until he caught pneumonia that winter which took his life, he still walked all over the halls of the care home, was (mostly) able to feed himself, and could still use the restroom (though he often just forgot where it was and often went in his across-the-hall neighbors trashcan (because in his house the bathroom was across the hall from his bedroom.)
Finally, my paternal grandmother, the great matriarch of 9 children, 21 grandchildren and (at the time of her death,) 9 grandchildren (posthumously 12,) passed away last spring. She survived the death of two of her sons, though the second one occurred after she had advanced Alzheimer’s, so she was (thankfully?) saved the knowledge and grief of his death.
My paternal grandfather died when my father was only 18. LONG before I was born.
My maternal grandfather died in 1956, four years before I was born.
My paternal grandmother lived with my family when I was a baby, but I have no recollection of her because she died when I was about 2 yrs old.
My maternal grandmother was a grand old bird, and I spent most of my childhood holidays in her care, eating her cakes and listening to stories about her life and loves (until she lost the plot and needed care herself…she died in 1982).
What’s sadder for me is that MY kids have absent grandparents…they’re all alive (except my father who died in 1985) but have little or no interest in the welfare of their grandchildren. Sux really.
I still have my maternal grandparents. I’ll be 40 in two weeks, they’re 94 and 93. Grandma just gave us a terrible scare last Saturday claiming she’d just come from going into the ER because her arm hurt and the arm was now immobilized… turns out she was having her first attack of arthrosis in the shoulder (my mother has had arthrosis since she was 15, grandma hadn’t had any until 88 and all that had bothered her in these 6 years was the knee) and she simply can’t reach as far as when the arm doesn’t hurt. Gramps is in similar good health, the most serious thing either of them has is “old age.”
Her mother died when I was 6; his, when I was 20. Her younger sister and his middle one still live (great-aunt Laura died at 95 two years ago, gramps’ little sister when she was 12).
My paternal grandfather died when I was 4; my paternal grandmother when I was 26, in graduate school abroad.
No cases of Alzheimer’s in the whole extended family (that can be a really lousy way to lose a grandparent who’s still physically there).
I lost my maternal grandmother at the age of 11. She lived with us for the last two years of her life when my grandfather could no longer care for her. She was 70.
I lost my paternal grandmother when I was 14. She had had serious health issues from the time that I could remember. She was 71.
My paternal grandfather passed when I was 20. He had a heart attack in the 50’s, but enjoyed otherwise good health for a number of years afterward until a massive one killed him at the age of 80.
My last grandparent was my mother’s father. He had a several strokes that incapacitated him the last year of his life. He was 78.
I also had two great-grandparents living when I was born. My maternal grandfather’s mother passed when I was 4 (she was 80) and my maternal grandmother’s father passed about six months later (he was 88). I don’t remember much about either of them.
My maternal grandmother died giving childbirth, long before I was born. The baby survived, and is now the grandmother of 7.
My paternal grandfather died of tuberculosis, also long before I was born.
Around the time I was born, my maternal grandfather married my paternal grandmother. These were the only grandparents I ever knew. He died when I was 9; she died when I was in my early 20s.
My one grandfather died long before I was born (before my father met ny mother, in fact), and the other died before I was a teenager. But I was in grad school when my grandmothers died.
One died when I was ~10. I only met her once when I was 5-ish. She lived halfway across the country & her death was insignificant to me.
The next died when I was ~25 after 5 years in a stroke-induced state of drooling incompetence. He had been a wonderful guy up until the fateful moment. The funeral was sad in a nostalgic sense, but he’d been dead to the world for years and everybody agreed dying was an improvement for him.
The last died when I was ~30. She was getting increasingly frail & just quit one day. That one stang a bit.
Paternal grandfather - I was 1 or 2 (never met him).
Paternal grandmother - I was around 10 or 12 (met her only once).
Maternal grandfather - I was 18
Maternal grandmother - I was 20.
Maternal grandfather: died before I was born. I’m named after him.
Paternal grandfather: I was 29
Paternal grandmother: I was 34.
Maternal grandmother: I was 42. She lived to be 96.
My mom’s dad died in 1963 so I never came close to knowing him.
My mom’s mom died when I was 26 and she lived with my folks for most of my life so I was rather close to her. She had been a grade school teacher in her younger days so she taught me a lot. Her death struck me the hardest because we had been so close.
My Dad’s father died when I was 26 as well. He had been a lifelong smoker and lived to the age of 86. He died of emphysema but it was pretty quick. He was only in the hospital for a week. He was a tough man who was generally taciturn although if you tried a bit, he could be a pretty entertaining story teller.
My dad’s mother is still alive and is now 86. I saw her last year and she was in good health. We had coffee at my aunt’s house and chatted for quite a bit.
Oddly enough, my dad was telling me that he and a cousin went to visit my great-grandfather’s younger sister who is still alive although easily in her late nineties. My great grandfather died in 1920, and she remembers him and her father pretty well. Dad said her mind was still sharp and she reminisced about the old days and filled them in on some family history.