I was the last in a long line of grandkids on both sides of the family. No one has ever said as much, but I'm pretty sure I was an "oops" baby; the result of one too many glasses of wine and a couple over forty who thought unplanned pregnancies were for teens.
Oops.
By the time I came along, both of my grandmothers had already passed away and my grandfathers were elderly and lived in different states. Trying to coordinate travel plans for a family of five, including an infant, was difficult on a budget and neither of my grandpas were up to frequent trips, so visits were rare and spaced out over long periods.
Still, both of my parents wanted me to have a relationship with them, so we'd trade phone calls so they could hear my nonsensical baby babble, they'd write me letters for Mom and Dad to read to me, and they'd get crayon scribbles in return.
When I was three, they both started to experience declines in health. First my maternal grandpa, then my paternal one. Fearing the worst, Mom purchased a pair of teddy bears, the kind that had recorders in them so you could record a message that would play when the bear was hugged, and made sure to get a message saved from both.
My mom's father died when I was four. A few days after his funeral, I was given a white teddy bear with bright blue eyes that twinkled from beneath a plaid flat cap and a green sweater. When I gave it a squeeze, I heard my grandpa's slightly muffled voice from its stomach.
"I love you, Sadie."
Two years later, after Dad's father passed, I got the other one. It was a slate gray color and the stitching on his face gave him a rather serious expression for a stuffed animal. A pair of red suspenders held up his tan trousers. I fell asleep hugging it and my dad told me some years later, with tears in his eyes, that randomly throughout that night, he kept hearing Grandpop's voice coming from my room.
"I love you, Sadie."
I named my white bear Fran and my gray bear Jock and put them on a shelf above my bed, where they sat throughout my childhood. Honestly, I didn't give them much thought; they had become fixtures of my room, the same way the lamp and dresser were. Every now and again, I'd come home from school to find one of my parents standing beside my bed, looking up at the bears or giving them a little squeeze. Even as time passed, they still recited their single phrase without fail.
Aside from those instances, though, Fran and Jock were little more than dust collectors from my childhood.
When I went away to college, the two didn't make the cut and were left behind while I made my way out into the world for the first time. I think my parents were a little disappointed that I wasn't more sentimental over the teddies, but any memories I had of my grandpas were hazy at best and I didn't have the same emotional connection that they did.
When Mom gently asked about whether I would like them when I moved into my first apartment, I told her no, that they were probably better off with her.
"Ok." She said. "Well, they'll be here if you change your mind."
I was pretty confident I wouldn't.
The next time I went back to my parents' place was to housesit while Dad took Mom on their long awaited vacation out west. He'd been promising her they'd go for over thirty years and they were both buzzing with excitement. In typical Mom fashion, however, she was also very nervous.
"You remember where all the financial documents are in case anything happens to us, right?" She asked from the backseat at least six times on the drive to the airport.
"Yes, in the white bin under your bed."
"And the wills?"
"Fireproof lock box in the back of your closet."
