Thought-provoking news about grandparents around the world.
Hannah Ernst, a teenager in New Jersey, lost her grandpa, Calvin Schoenfeld, to covid-19 in May. Schoenfeld, 83, was a graphic designer, and Hannah created a digital silhouette of him as a tribute. Since then, she has made hundreds more silhouettes of covid victims from around the world.
The share of young adults living at home has been rising for decades in the United States. But in the six months since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the increase has been especially steep.
The number of Covid deaths in the United States is fast approaching 200,000. And while Americans of all ages have lost their lives, the vast majority are grandparents, great-grandparents, and their peers. Millions of people are grieving them.
Millions of grandparents have been torn from their grandkids. Others are responsible for raising them, and worry about who’ll finish the job if they can’t.
Collin Fowler of Albuquerque, New Mexico serenaded his quarantined grandparents with bagpipes to mark their 55th wedding anniversary. He stood in the middle of their cul-de-sac, while they listened from the safety of their stoop.
Here’s an excellent article from The Washington Post by a retired professor who typically cares for her grandkids after school. Last week, she was “laid off” from this job for her own protection.
Five of Doug Hayes’s ten grandkids are old enough to ride the school bus he bought them for Christmas, which he’s calling the “Grandfather Express.”
A murderer admits to his crime, but his victim’s mother—who is seeking custody of her grandson—fights on.
Some days, they take care of their grandchildren. Other days, they prowl the bottom of the sea in search of venomous snakes.
Concerned about the impact of climate change on their grandchildren, elders in London have taken to the streets.
Joy Ryan had never seen the ocean or climbed a mountain. Then her grandson took her on the road.
An 88-year-old woman, her daughter, her granddaughter, and her great-granddaughter recently teamed up for a 5K in Albany.
“Anyone who thinks of old age as a time of stagnation just hasn’t been there,” writes Doris Carnevali.
A middle school in Ohio has a novel take on the Senior Prom.
Faced with declining enrollment, an elementary school in rural South Korea is welcoming grandmothers, many of whom were not permitted to attend school when they were girls.
“I don’t think it was anything special, to be honest,” said Faye Morgan, 81, after wresting two pythons from a backyard grill.
Lauren Phillips is the first woman to join the ranks of the city’s firefighters in 30 years.
In 2018, I wrote about a caravan of grandparents who stormed the Texas-Mexico border to protest Trump’s treatment of migrant children, Gabriel García Márquez’s memories of his grandmother, and many other topics.
