Tell me about yourself, Grandpa. 113 questions for Grandpa to really get to know him

Grandparents are like travelers who have come from another, distant world that we hardly remember. Their words, habits, and views on life often differ significantly from ours, and therefore hold immense value. They themselves are like disappearing worlds, which we risk losing without fully understanding them.

Many of us were raised by our grandparents.

They had time for us that was often lacking in our perpetually busy working parents.

They found the right words when we could not find common ground with our parents.

They invented ways to make us happy when our parents thought “there’s no need to spoil” us.

And we found (and continue to find) in our grandparents a sense of peace, comfort, and a way to look at life quite differently from what we are used to.

This book is a way to preserve for ourselves and our children at least a small part of the world of our grandparents, to prevent the thread that connects the past and future of the family from breaking, and to make the family history deeper and richer.

And also – to give grandfathers the opportunity to feel our genuine interest in them and their lives.

Family knowledge is an absolutely necessary thing to help us stay grounded. The further back into the past the flashlight shines, the better we understand ourselves and our relationships with life. By looking deeper into our history, we can see not just the biographies of the people who brought us into this world, but also family scenarios, certain recurring patterns that can explain much about ourselves.

When we know those who came before us, we do not feel emptiness behind us – and fear of what awaits us. No matter what happens, we are in our place – among dear and close people, who lived once, are already living, and are just beginning to live.