Grandparent, protect future

Spokane has a ton of grandparents. You see them in church, at the doctor’s office, post office and other places where aging boomers and elders still go, and this paper regularly shows us five-generation families with a great-great grandmother holding her latest descendant in her lap.

Grandparents and great grandparents know they have a duty to the future, which for them is no mere abstraction, but a child who sits on their lap and stares innocently into their faces. And they remember how things used to be, in generations past. This loving and long perspective gives them wisdom you don’t get from Twitter or the daily news and a concrete reason to make the world a better place.

Spokane needs grandparents who care about the future to remind their young that summers are hotter now, storms worse and forests more fragile to fires and pests no longer killed off by freezing winters. We need grandparents to remind us that politicians and presidents come and go, but that this land and planet are the only home we and our grandchildren have. And we need grandparents to stand up and protect the future whose face they have already seen.

Patrick T. McCormick

Spokane