We thank you for our grandparents who have played such an important role in our lives.

We remember with joy all of the time spent together doing simple things like fishing, doing a puzzle, baking cookies, taking a walk, reading a story and learning about the wonder of nature.

Thank you for the privilege of hearing their stories of life in another time and place that inspired us to work hard, be patient, courageously endure hard times and to dare to follow our dreams.

We are forever grateful for the wisdom and stability they provided when we felt our world was falling apart.

What a great gift to us that they loved us just because we were their grandchild.

Thank you that they counted it joy to spend time listening as we told them about the big and little things going on in our lives.

May we continuously feel their hugs and feel the warmth of their smiles so that we can better comprehend your constant and unchanging love for us.

We ask your kind forgiveness for the times we failed to appreciate our grandparents, for the times we were too wrapped up in ourselves and our own activities to spend more time with them.

Help us to become more like them as we age, learning how to accept with grace the limitations of aging bodies. Give us their strong and supernatural grace to face the loss of our own aging friends and family the same way our grandparents have. May we learn from them how to face the prospects of our own limited time on earth and our own deaths with the dignity, peace, and assurance of eternal life.

And when our time comes to be grandparents ourselves, help us to follow in their loving footsteps.