Grandparents and Community
After losing a grandmother, I’ve been thinking often about what indeed is lost in death and what may not be there in the distant relationships we seem to have with our grandparents, families and communities in modern times. As often is the case, I’ve found answers in the words of Wendell Berry. During an interview with Bruce Williamson in 1973 Berry talks about some of this.
Williamson: In your work you emphasize that the inhabitants of a region thrive on the daily interchange between old and young…yet many of these new communities are made up primarily of young people.
Berry:Yes, and that’s one of the worst possible kinds of segregation. This is probably the first generation not to have a history. They have their own immediate history but not one that comes from having older people around them. They’re coming up to adult life without the awareness that anyone has ever gone through their experiences before, much less learned anything from them. But I know people who as children had their grandparents’ memories in their memories, so that in a sense, as young people they had old minds. They had a kind of seasoning.
Williamson:You certainly talk about your own childhood in that way.
Berry:That’s right, although I can’t say that I’ve always agreed with all the older people I’ve grown up around. I’ve had the same struggles with them as most people who grow up. Nevertheless I owe a great debt to my elders and I agree with all of them on something or other. I think that my knowledge of them and my association with them has given me a sense of what is possible. There’s a sort of gift to humanity that each generation of young people renews. They feel in their bones that’s desirable. “It would be great if we could be free.” And the function of older people in society is not to oppose that, but to qualify it. To say, it would be great to be free…but there are certain ways to get free that are going to surprise you and make stern demands on you. The man who is most able usually turns out to be the man who’s most free, not the one who’s the most reckless. The old are the ones who will put their hands on you and say, “Well, be a little steady now,” or “No, you can’t quit, you’re not finished yet.”