I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandparents lately. I don’t often see them - maybe once a year. But my mind has been stuck these past few days on distant memories that really are still very fresh in my mind.

My parents divorced when I was three years old, and my older sister and I were shuffled betwixt our mother’s house in Georgia, and my father’s house in Kansas. Spending only two months of the year with a family you practically don’t know is strange. My parents didn’t part well, and they turned my sister and me into mudslinging little messengers. I often cried myself to sleep. Divorce is hell on children. While my parents staying married for the sake of my sister and me would have been a terrible mistake, we suffered just as much jumping from one dysfunctional family to the next.

Spending time with my grandparents, however, was nothing less than salvation. I would cling to each moment with them, loath to return “home” to my father and stepmother. Whereas time spent with my grandparents felt like the excitement of Christmas morning, going back to my dad’s house was akin to holiday letdown. There was no summer vacation at my dad’s house; instead, there were strict rules and frequent spankings delivered on bare skin with a hand or belt and always the excuse that “this is gonna hurt me more than it’s gonna hurt you.” My dad, a Sgt. Major, treated me like one of his men. He seemed to forget that I was just a little girl. I can’t think about him, write about him, or talk about him without feeling tense and angered.

But my grandparents . . . they are Safety and Comfort personified.

Whenever I hear the sound of ice cream churning, I think about them. I think about walking into their kitchen and smelling dinner in the oven, the best-tasting food you could ever imagine. I think of sneaking mint-flavored gum drops from the candy jar. I think of swimming in the pool and splashing my grandma who would feign worry about getting her hair wet. I think of sitting on the warm concrete patio, a towel wrapped around me, eating homemade ice-cream sandwiches. I think about the big brown dog next door that I would pet through the metal fence. I think about the afternoons spent at the playground, rolling down the grassy hill. I think about my grandma braiding my hair and fashioning a handkerchief around my head to protect me from the Kansas wind. I think of camping with my grandparents at the lake and being allowed to drink more “pop” than a kid should ever consume. I think of my grandpa who would let me type on his mechanical typewriter and play “post office” with his rubber thumb and old junk mail. I think of my grandma coloring with me, reading books to me, and singing me to sleep.

I’m lucky that I still have both my grandparents, and I can’t imagine my life without them. When I feel angry at the hand that Fate dealt me when I was born to an alcoholic mother and an abusive father, I must remember that it dealt me two Aces as well.