The "Other" Grandparent: Ole' Sandy

It came up today randomly, when a younger male family member called out to me. "What about Grandma?" I don't know if something weird's going on, if I remember correctly her birthday was the anniversary of the stock market crash, and she died around the end of 2016 when my dad was distracted by something else. She told me something random when I was watching television at my parent's house, and I said huh, that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard in my life. Everything seems like that when I am talking to the spirits though, a lot of times (or Subbie, but those things happen at the same time always). I hated Grandma Sandy when I was in preschool, no I didn't hate her at all, just thought she was annoying meanie weanie woo, or actually... I don't remember why. I don't remember anything about why I didn't like her, but I didn't. So at the preschool graduation, we all had to wear little paper graduation hats, and I remember I thought the hat was dumb looking so I tore it up afterwards... And we had to do a dance, and I watched Grandma the entire time, and whenever she looked my direction, I did a dumb mocking dance, mocking her. "You deeply regretted that and you were very embarrassed, that was understood at your high school graduation. It was unspoken." She told me. I said "huh, you're right! I never even thought of that..." What was the exchange between us? The only one, I think? "So this is it," Grandma said. "Yes, it is." That was the exchange. Reference to, this is the real significant graduation now huh, and naturally you thought about that incident and regret it terribly and you wouldn't act disrespectful to your grandma. The other thing I would point out is it didn't take very long after preschool to figure that out, either, maybe a year or two. What was I thinking? The blogging website won't let me do paragraph breaks, I'm too lazy to figure this out... So, anyway, she pointed something out to me, since, I didn't get around to grilling her before, or she didn't want to talk, or whatever... You were the child who was "precious." And she says that with tears, and she always knew. And that's the parental pitfall. That's the trap! That's the trap! And it's something I experienced when pregnant, thinking about my own child, I can relate. You want everything, EVERYTHING, to be perfect about that child's life. No pain, no suffering, no hardships... No lessons about how... Even your idols have things that disappoint you about them. You want everything about that child's life to be love and peace and tranquility in their youth, and then they go on to rule the world with a strong mind, an iron fist, and a heart of gold. But that's not how it works. That's not the right way to raise children. You thought you knew that, did you? "Well you don't give into temper tantrums." Yes, and that's not the only thing, and it's not as simple as oh, tantrum, the answer is no most of the time. THAT'S not effective parenting. Just telling you this now, and no, I (Rachel) am not pregnant... Dun dun dun... Dun dun dun... DUN. DUN. Doooo....