My Grandpa, The Cheerleader

Love is patient and kind.

Growing up, my mom was more tomboy than girly girl, eschewing cute dresses for adventures around their small desert town with her best friend, Sydney. As an adult, I chuckle over stories of Sydney’s pet skunk and my mom’s childhood antics that resulted in tattling phone calls home from Vera at the grocery store, long before Mom walked through her front door at the end of a fun day.

My mom was a daddy’s girl, and my Grandpa Meckem was a cowboy in the truest sense of the word. He worked on ranches and drove cattle before getting married and settling down later in life than most. As rough-and-tumble as he needed to be for his line of work, he had a tender heart and an artist’s eye. By the time I knew Grandpa, he had taken up painting landscapes of the Arizona countryside and loved to tell stories that were approximately 25 percent true and 75 percent exaggeration in the funniest, best ways.

Grandpa spoke words of life over my mom when not many did, loving her patiently as she grew into herself, ignoring labels and expectations rather than heaping them upon her. He was an outsize presence in her life, and her strength of spirit and loving compassion come from her dad and his influence.

I’ve often marveled at the contradiction that was Grandpa. He was a traditionalist, but he also encouraged his daughters to be their authentic selves at a time when women had clearly defined expectations and few acceptable career options. He was an example of cheerleading his girl along her path without diminishing anyone else.

It’s my grandfather’s example that draws me toward the kind of cheering that embraces and encourages young people as they grow into their giftings—the kind of cheering that is filled with patience, lovingly allowing them to be wholly themselves at each stage of development.

I gratefully emulate him as I engage with those younger than me. It might be college students in my on-campus office after class, processing aloud their thoughts about next steps. Or it might be middle schoolers being quirky and goofy in the back seat of my car as I drive them to an event. There is something precious about loving people in the stage they are in, cheering them on, embracing who they are in the moment, even as you see glimpses of who they will be.

Julie

Today’s Act of Gratitude

Who around you could you patiently and lovingly cheerlead?